-NRLF 


655 


UBRARY 
CWIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

DAVIS 


CHARLES  H.  STERNBERG. 


American  Mature  Series 

Group  IV.     Working  with  Nature 


THE  LIFE 

OF  A 

FOSSIL    HUNTER 

BY 
CHARLES   H.  STERNBERG 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION 
BY 

HENRY   FAIRFIELD   OSBORN 

ILLUSTRATED 

LIBRARY 
UNIVERSr: 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY   HOLT   AND   COMPANY 
1909 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
RY 

COLLEGE  .OULTU.J: 


Copyright,  1909, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
Published,  February,  igog 


THE  QUINN    *   BODEN    CO.    PRESS 
RAHWAY,    N.    J. 


PREFACE 

I  WISH  to  call  the  attention  of  the  reader  of  my 
story  "  The  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter  "  to  the  fact 
:hat  I  am  under  obligations  especially  to  Prof. 
Henry  Fairfield  Osborn,  President  and  Curator  of 
Paleontology  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
ilistory  in  New  York.  He  has  supplied  me  with 
many  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  illustrations  that 
llumine  these  pages  and  has  assisted  the  work  in 
many  ways. 

I  would  also  express  my  gratitude  to  Miss  Mar- 
garet Wagenalls  of  New  York,  who  edited  the 
manuscript;  to  Prof.  Dunlap  of  the  Kansas  State 
Jniversity,  for  his  kindly  criticisms;  and  to  Dr.  W. 
K.  Gregory,  Lecturer  on  Zoology  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, whose  untiring  efforts  have  brought  the 
oook  to  its  present  form. 

I  hope  it  may  awaken  a  wide  interest  in  the 
study  of  ancient  life,  and  I  thank  my  friends  every- 
where who  are  contributing  to  that  end. 

CHARLES  H.  STERNBERG. 
LAWRENCE,  KANSAS, 

January,  igog. 


CONTENTS 

:HAPTER                                                                                     PAGE 
INTRODUCTION  BY   PROFESSOR  HENRY  FAIRFIELD 
OSBORN xi 

I.    EARLY  DAYS  AND  WORK  IN  THE  DAKOTA  GROUP 

OF  THE  CRETACEOUS i 

II.    FIRST  EXPEDITION  TO  THE  KANSAS  CHALK  (1876)  .    32 

III.  EXPEDITION  WITH  PROFESSOR  COPE  TO  THE  BAD 

LANDS  OF  THE  UPPER  CRETACEOUS  (1876)  ,    61 

IV.  FURTHER  WORK  IN  THE  KANSAS  CHALK  (1877)  .        .    99 

V.     DISCOVERY  OF  THE  LOUP  FORK  BEDS  OF  KANSAS 

AND  SUBSEQUENT  WORK  THERE  (1877, 1882-1884)  .  120 

VI.    EXPEDITION  TO  THE  OREGON  DESERT  IN  1877         •  *44 

VII.  EXPEDITION  TO  THE  JOHN  DAY  RIVER  IN  1878  .        .  170 

VIII.  FIRST  EXPEDITION  TO  THE  PERMIAN  OF  TEXAS  IN 

1882 205 

IX.     EXPEDITIONS  IN  THE  PERMIAN  OF  TEXAS  FOR  PRO- 
FESSOR COPE  (1895-1897) 230 

X.    IN  THE  RED  BEDS  OF  TEXAS  FOR  THE   ROYAL 

MUSEUM  OF  MUNICH  (1901) 244 

XI.    CONCLUSION 265 

NDEX  .  .  283 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

CHARLES  H.  STERNBERG      ....      Frontispiece 
ROCKS  OF  LARAMIE  BEDS  ON  SOUTH  SCHNEIDER  CREEK, 

CONVERSE  Co.,  WYOMING 16 

WEATHERED   ROCKS   AND   LARAMIE   BEDS   NEAR   SOUTH 

SCHNEIDER  CREEK 16 

MUSHROOM-LIKE  CONCRETION  KNOWN  AS  PULPIT  ROCK    .      17 
FOSSIL    LEAVES    OF    Sassafras   dissectum.     (After    Les- 

quereux.) 20 

FOSSIL  LEAVES,    a,  UNOPENED  LEAF  NODULE,    b,  NODULE 

OPENED  TO  SHOW  FOSSIL  LEAF.      C,  d,  e,  f,  VARIOUS  FORMS 

OF  FOSSIL  LEAVES 21 

FACSIMILE   OF   LETTER   FROM    DR.    LESQUEREUX   TO   THE 

AUTHOR 24 

SKULL  AND  FRONT  LIMB  OF  Clidastes  tortor      ...      44 

SKELETON  OF  Clidastes  tortor    . 45 

SKELETON  OF  RAM-NOSED  TYLOSAUR,  Tylosaurus  dyspelor      45 
RAM-NOSED  TYLOSAUR,  Tylosaurus  dyspelor.    Restoration 

by  Osborn  and  Knight 50 

SKULL   OF   THE   FLAT-WRISTED   MOSASAUR,   Platecarpus 

coryphaus 51 

RESTORATION  OF  KANSAS  CRETACEOUS  ANIMALS.  (From 
drawing  by  S.  Prentice,  after  Williston.)  a,  Unita- 
crinus  socialis;  b,  Clidastes  velox;  c,  Ornithostoma 

ingens 56 

GIANT  CRETACEOUS   FISH,   Portheus  molossus   (above), 

COMPARED  WITH  A  SIX-FOOT  MODERN  TARPON    (below)      .         57 

LOWER  JAW  OF  Trachodon  marginatus,  SHOWING  SUC- 
CESSIVE LAYERS  OF  TEETH.  TOP  AND  SIDE  VIEWS  OF  A 

TOOTH  OF  Myledaphus  bipartitus.     (After  Osborn  and 

Lambe.) 76 

SKULL  OF  A  DUCK-BILLED  DINOSAUR,  Diclonius,  FOUR  FEET 

IN  LENGTH     «       w        ....        ,:       N       M       >}       w       77 

vii 


viii  Illustrations 

PAGE 

PROFESSOR  E.  D.  COPE      ....      .      .      .      .      78 

BRONTOSAURUS    OR    THUNDER    LIZARD.    Restoration    by 

Osborn   and    Knight 79 

FOSSIL  SHELLS,  Haploscapha  grandis.  (After  Cope.)  .  108 
CHARLES  STERNBERG  AND  SON  TAKING  UP  A  LARGE  SLAB 

OF  FOSSILS  FROM  A  CHALK  BED  IN  GOVE  Co.,  KANSAS         .       lOQ 

CAMP  AND  WAGON  OF  THE  FOSSIL  HUNTERS  ON  GRASSWOOD 
CREEK,  CONVERSE  Co.,  WYOMING 109 

SKELETON  OF  THE  PLESIOSAUR,  Dolichorhynchus  osborni. 
(AfterWilliston.) 114 

FOSSIL    LIMB    BONES    OF    THE    GlANT    SEA    TORTOISE,    PrO- 

tostega  gigas 115 

FOSSIL  SHELL  OF  GIANT  LAND  TURTLE,  Testudo  orthopygid  122 
THE  SNAKE-NECKED  ELASMOSAURUS,  Elasmosaurus  platy- 

urus.  Restoration  by  Osborn  and  Knight  ...  123 
THREE-TOED  HORSE,  Hypohippus.  (After  Gidley.)  .  132 
FOSSIL  RHINOCEROS,  Teleoceras  fossiger.  (After  Osborn.)  133 
SKULL  AND  TUSKS  OF  IMPERIAL  MAMMOTH,  Elephas 

imperator 178 

FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.  (After  Merriam.)  UPPER  JOHN- 
DAY  EXPOSURE 179 

FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.  (After  Merriam.)  MIDDLE  JOHN 

DAY  EXPOSURE 179 

FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.  (After  Merriam.)  MASCALL 

FORMATION 202 

FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.  (After  Merriam.)  CLARNO 

FORMATION 202 

SKULL  OF  GREAT  SABER-TOOTHED  TIGER,  Pogonodon  platy- 

copis.  (After  Cope.) 203 

SKELETON  OF  FIN-BACKED  LIZARD,  Naosaurus  claviger  .  234 
FIN-BACKED  LIZARD,  Naosaurus  claviger.  Restoration  by 

Osborn  and  Knight 235 

FACSIMILE  OF  LETTER  FROM  PROF.  E.  D.  COPE  TO  THE 

AUTHOR 238 

FOSSIL  SKULL  OF  GIANT  SALAMANDER,  Diplocaulus  magni- 

cornis.  (After  Broili.) .240 

PROFESSOR  HENRY  FAIRFIELD  OSBORN 241 

FACSIMILE  OF  LETTER  FROM  DR.  KARL  VON  ZITTEL  TO  THE 

AUTHOR 246 


Illustrations  ix 

PAGE 

DR.  KARL  VON  ZITTEL       ....      .      .      .       .    256 

SHELL  OF  Toxochelys  baurif 257 

NIOBRARA  GROUP,  CRETACEOUS  CHALK  WITH  CAP  ROCK  OF 
LOUP  FORK  TERTIARY,  KNOWN  AS  CASTLE  ROCK,  GOVE 

Co.,  KANSAS 262 

CHALK  OF  KANSAS,  KNOWN  AS  THE  COFFEE  MILL.    Hell 

Creek 262 

BONES  OF  Platecarpus  coryphaeus 263 

SKELETON  OF  Hesperornis  regalis,  THE  GIANT-TOOTHED 

BIRD  OF  THE  KANSAS  CRETACEOUS 266 

SLAB  OF  FOSSIL  CRINOIDS,  Unitacrinus  socialis,  CONTAIN- 
ING 1 60  CALYCES,  COVERING  FOUR  BY  SEVEN  FEET        .         .      267 

SKULL  AND  HORNS  OF  GIANT  BISON  FROM  HOXIE,  KANSAS. 
SPREAD  OF  HORN  CORES  six  FEET,  ONE  INCH;  LENGTH 

ALONG   CURVE,    EIGHT    FEET 268 

JAW  OF  COLUMBIAN  MAMMOTH,  Elephas  columbi      .       .     269 
THREE- HORNED  DINOSAUR,   Triceratops  sp.    Restoration 

by    Osborn    and    Knight 270 

DUCK-BILLED  DINOSAUR,  Trachodon  mirabilis.    Restora- 
tion by  Osborn  and  Knight 271 


INTRODUCTION 

By  HENRY  FAIRFIELD  OSBORN, 

President  and  Curator  of  Vertebrate  Paleontology 
of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  New  York 

OUR  bookshelves  contain  the  lives  or  narratives  of 
adventure  of  many  hunters  of  living  game,  but  the 
life  of  a  fossil  hunter  has  never  been  written  before. 
Both  are  in  the  closest  touch  with  nature  and,  there- 
fore, full  of  interest.  The  one  is  as  full  of  adven- 
ture, excitement  and  depression,  hope  and  failure, 
as  the  other,  yet  there  is  ever  the  great  difference 
that  the  hunter  of  live  game,  thorough  sportsman 
though  he  may  be,  is  always  bringing  live  animals 
nearer  to  death  and  extinction,  whereas  the  fossil 
hunter  is  always  seeking  to  bring  extinct  animals 
back  to  life.  This  revivification  of  the  past,  of  the 
forms  which  once  graced  the  forests  and  plains,  and 
rivers  and  seas,  is  attended  with  as  great  fascination 
as  the  quest  of  live  game,  and  to  my  mind  is  a  still 
more  honorable  and  noble  pursuit. 

The  richness  of  the  great  American  fossil  fields, 

xi 


xii  Introduction 

which  extend  over  the  vast  arid  and  semi-arid  area 
of  the  West,  scattered  over  both  the  great  plains 
region  and  the  great  mountain  region,  has  resulted 
in  the  creation  of  a  distinctively  American  profes- 
sion :  that  of  fossil  hunting.  The  fossil  hunter  must 
first  of  all  be  a  scientific  enthusiast.  He  must  be 
willing  to  endure  all  kinds  of  hardships,  to  suffer 
cold  in  the  early  spring  and  the  late  autumn  and 
early  winter  months,  to  suffer  intense  heat  and  the 
glare  of  the  sun  in  summer  months,  and  he  must 
be  prepared  to  drink  alkali  water,  and  in  some  re- 
gions to  fight  off  the  attack  of  the  mosquito  and 
other  pests.  He  must  be  something  of  an  engineer 
in  order  to  be  able  to  handle  large  masses  of  stone 
and  transport  them  over  roadless  wastes  of  desert 
to  the  nearest  shipping  point;  he  must  have  a  deli- 
cate and  skilful  touch  to  preserve  the  least  frag- 
ments of  bone  when  fractured;  he  must  be  content 
with  very  plain  living,  because  the  profession  is  sel- 
dom, if  ever,  remunerative,  and  he  is  almost  invaria- 
bly underpaid;  he  must  find  his  chief  reward  and 
stimulus  in  the  sense  of  discovery  and  in  the  des- 
patching of  specimens  to  museums  which  he  has 
never  seen  for  the  benefit  of  a  public  which  has  little 
knowledge  or  appreciation  of  the  self-sacrifices 
which  the  fossil  hunter  has  made. 

The  fossil  fields  of  America  have  fortunately  at- 
tracted a  number  of  such  devoted  explorers,  and  one 


Introduction  xiii 

of  the  pioneers  on  the  honorable  list  is  the  author  of 
this  work,  who  by  his  untiring  energy  has  con- 
tributed some  of  the  finest  specimens  which  now 
adorn  the  shelves  and  cases  of  many  of  the  great 
museums  of  America  and  Europe. 

Although  special  explorations  have  been  described, 
sometimes  in  considerable  detail,  this  is  the  first  time 
that  the  "  life  of  a  fossil  hunter  "  has  been  written, 
and  it  is  fitting  that  it  comes  from  the  pen  of  the 
oldest  living  representative  of  this  distinctively 
American  profession.  The  name  of  Charles  H. 
Sternberg  is  attached  to  discoveries  in  many  parts 
of  the  West ;  discoveries  which  have  formed  distinct 
contributions  to  science,  to  the  advance  of  paleon- 
tology, to  our  knowledge  of  the  wonderful  ancient 
life  of  North  America.  His  is  a  career  full  of  ad- 
venture, of  self-sacrifice,  worthy  of  lasting  record 
and  recognition  by  all  lovers  of  nature. 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  FOSSIL  HUNTER 

CHAPTER  I 

EARLY  DAYS  AND  WORK  IN  THE 

DAKOTA  GROUP  OF  THE 

CRETACEOUS 

DO  not  remember  when  I  first  began 
collecting  fossils,  but  I  have  always  loved 
nature. 

Fifteen  years  of  my  early  life  were 
spent  in  Otsego  County,  New  York,  at  dear  old 
Hartwick  Seminary,  where  my  father,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Levi  Sternberg,  was  principal  for  fourteen  years, 
and  my  grandfather,  Dr.  George  B.  Miller,  a  much- 
loved,  devout  man,  professor  of  theology  for  thirty- 
five.  The  lovely  valley  of  the  Susquehanna,  in  which 
it  stands,  lies  five  miles  below  Cooperstown,  the 
birthplace  of  the  Walter  Scott  of  America,  James 
Fenimore  Cooper,  and  my  boyhood  was  spent  among 
scenes  which  he  has  made  famous.  Often  my  com- 
panions and  I  have  gone  picnicking  on  Otsego 
Lake,  shouting  to  call  up  the  echo,  and  spreading 


2  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

our  tablecloth  on  shore  beneath  the  very  tree  from 
which  the  catamount  was  once  about  to  spring  upon 
terrified  Elizabeth  Temple. 

My  greatest  pleasure  in  those  early  days  and 
best,  was  to  live  with  a  darling  cousin  in  the  woods. 
There  among  the  majestic  trees, — maples,  hickories, 
pines,  and  hemlocks, — we  used  to  build  sylvan  re- 
treats, weaving  willow  twigs  in  and  out  among  the 
poles  which  I  cut  for  supports;  and  there,  to  those 
great  trees,  I  delivered  my  boy  orations.  We  de- 
lighted also  to  visit  and  explore  Moss  Pond,  a  body 
of  water  on  top  of  the  hills  across  the  river,  sur- 
rounded entirely  by  sponge  moss.  We  could  "  tee- 
ter "  across  the  moss  to  a  log  that  gave  us  support, 
and  catch  blind  bullheads,  or  eat  our  lunch  in  the 
cool,  dense  hemlock  woods  that  surrounded  the 
water,  where  the  heavy  branches,  intertwined  like 
mighty  arms,  shut  away  the  light,  so  that  even  at 
midday  the  sun  could  barely  pierce  their  shadows. 

How  I  loved  flowers!  I  carried  to  my  mother 
the  first  crocus  bloom  that  showed  its  head  above 
the  melting  snow,  the  trailing  arbutus,  and  the  ten- 
der foliage  of  the  wintergreen.  Later  in  the  season 
I  gathered  for  her  the  yellow  cowslip  and  fragrant 
water-lily;  and  when  autumn  frosts  had  tinged  the 
leaves  with  crimson  and  gold  I  filled  her  arms  with 
a  glorious  wealth  of  color. 

Even  in  those  early  days  I  used  to  cut  out  shells 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group  3 

from  the  limestone  strata  of  the  region  with  what- 
ever tools  were  at  hand,  but  they  were  admired 
chiefly  as  examples  of  the  wonderful  power  of 
running  water  to  carve  rocks  into  the  semblance  of 
shells.  Or  if  one  of  the  more  observant  remarked 
that  these  shells  looked  very  much  as  if  they  had 
been  alive  once,  the  only  theory  that  would  account 
for  their  presence  and  yet  sustain  the  belief  that  the 
world  was  only  six  thousand  years  old,  was  that  the 
Almighty,  who  created  the  rocks,  could  easily,  at 
the  same  time,  have  created  the  ancient  plants  and 
animals  as  fossils,  just  as  they  were  found. 

I  remember  a  rich  find  I  made  in  the  garret  of  an 
uncle  in  Ames,  New  York, — a  cradle  filled  with 
fossil  shells  and  crystals  of  quartz.  They  had  been 
collected  by  my  uncle's  brother,  who,  fortunately, 
as  my  uncle  said,  had  died  early,  before  bringing 
disgrace  upon  the  family  by  wasting  his  time  wan- 
dering over  the  hills  and  gathering  stones.  All  the 
large  specimens  he  had  collected  had  been  thrown 
away,  and  the  smaller  ones  in  the  old  cradle  had 
long  been  forgotten.  I  was  welcome  to  all  my 
uncle's  buggy  could  carry  when  he  took  me  home, 
and  I  can  never  forget  the  joy  of  going  over  that 
material  again  and  again,  selecting  the  specimens 
that  appealed  most  to  my  sense  of  the  beautiful  and 
the  wonderful.  I  labeled  them  all  "  From  Uncle 
James,"  and  it  greatly  astonished  a  dear  aunt  of 


4  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

mine,  to  whom  I  gave  them  some  years  later  when 
we  moved  West,  to  find  in  the  collection  a  lot  of 
baculites,  labeled  "  Worms  from  Uncle  James." 

When  I  was  ten  years  old,  I  met  with  an  accident 
from  which  I  have  never  completely  recovered.  I 
remember  the  wild  chase  I  was  making  after  an 
older  boy,  over  the  hay-mows  and  piles  of  shocked 
grain  in  my  father's  barn.  On  the  floor  below,  an 
old-fashioned  thresher,  one  of  the  first  of  its  kind, 
was  making  an  ear-splitting  noise,  while  outside  the 
two  horses,  hitched  to  an  inclined  plane,  climbed 
incessantly,  but  never  reached  the  top. 

The  boy  climbed  a  shock  of  oats  on  the  scaffold 
in  the  peak  of  the  barn,  and  "  Charley-boy,"  as  my 
mother  called  me,  following  him,  slipped  through  a 
hole  in  the  top  of  the  ladder  which  had  been  cov- 
ered by  the  settling  oats,  and  fell  twenty  feet  to  the 
floor  below.  The  older  boy  climbed  swiftly  down 
and  carried  me  home  insensible  to  my  mother. 

Our  family  physician  thought  that  only  a  sprain 
was  the  result,  and  bandaged  the  injured  limb;  but, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  fibula  of  the  left  leg  had 
been  dislocated,  so  that  there  was  much  suffering 
and  a  little  crippled  boy  going  about  among  the 
hills  on  crutches. 

The  leg  never  grew  quite  strong  again,  and  some 
years  later  gave  me  a  good  deal  of  trouble.  In 
1872  I  was  in  charge  of  a  ranch  in  Kansas,  and  dur- 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group  5 

ing  November  of  that  year  a  great  sleet  storm  cov- 
ered the  whole  central  part  of  the  state.  In  order 
to  water  my  cattle,  which  were  scattered  over  a 
range  of  several  thousand  acres  on  Elm  Creek,  I 
was  obliged  to  follow  around  small  bands  of  them 
to  their  accustomed  watering-places  and  cut  the  ice 
for  them.  The  water  that  splashed  over  my  clothing 
froze  solid,  and  the  result  was  that  inflammatory 
rheumatism  settled  in  the  lame  leg.  I  sat  in  a 
leathern  chair  all  winter  close  to  a  boxwood  stove, 
tended  by  my  dear  mother,  who  never  left  me  day 
or  night. 

When  the  inflammation  subsided,  the  knee  joint 
had  become  ankylosed,  and  in  order  to  avoid  going 
on  crutches  all  my  life,  I  lay  in  the  hospital  at  Fort 
Riley  for  three  months,  all  alone  in  a  great  ward, 
and  had  the  limb  straightened  by  a  special  machine. 
So  skilfully  did  the  army  surgeon  do  this  work 
that  I  threw  away  crutches  and  cane,  and,  although 
the  leg  has  always  been  stiff,  I  have  since  walked 
thousands  of  miles  among  the  fossiliferous  beds  in 
the  desolate  fields  of  the  West. 

In  1865,  when  I  was  fifteen  years  old,  my  father 
accepted  the  principalship  of  the  Iowa  Lutheran 
College  at  Albion,  Marshall  County,  and  the  broken 
hill  country  of  my  boyhood  days  was  replaced  by 
the  plains  and  water  courses  of  the  Middle  West. 

Two  years  later  my  twin  brother  and  I  emigrated 


6  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

to  an  older  brother's  ranch  in  Ellsworth  County, 
Kansas,  two  and  a  half  miles  south  of  Fort  Harker, 
now  known  as  Kanopolis.  This  post  was  at  that 
time  the  terminus  of  the  Kansas  Division  of  the 
Union  Pacific,  and  almost  daily  train-load  after 
train-load  of  prairie  schooners,  drawn  by  oxen, 
burros,  or  mules,  pulled  out  from  it  over  the  old 
Butterfield  and  Santa  Fe  trails,  the  one  leading  up 
the  Smoky  Hill,  the  other  through  the  valley  of  the 
Arkansas  to  Denver  and  the  Southwest. 

In  spring  great  herds  of  buffalo  followed  the  ten- 
der grass  northward,  returning  to  the  South  in  the 
fall;  and  one  bright  day  my  brother  and  I  started 
out  on  our  first  buffalo  hunt.  Driving  a  team  of 
Indian  ponies  hitched  to  a  light  spring  wagon,  we 
soon  left  the  few  settlements  behind,  and  reached 
the  level  prairie  to  the  southwest,  near  old  Fort 
Zaro,  a  deserted  one-company  post  on  the  Santa  Fe 
Trail.  At  this  time  it  had  been  appropriated  by  a 
cattleman  who  had  a  small  herd  grazing  in  the 
vicinity. 

When  within  a  few  miles  of  this  post,  we  saw  a 
large  herd  of  buffalo  lying  down  a  mile  away.  It 
was  no  easy  matter  to  crawl  toward  them  over  the 
plain,  pushing  myself  along  without  raising  my  body 
above  the  short  grass,  but  after  strenuous  efforts  I 
got  within  shooting  distance  without  disturbing 
them,  and  was  resting  for  a  shot,  when  the  rancher 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group  7 

rode  through  the  herd  and  sent  them  all  off  at  a 
lope.  Much  angered  and  almost  tempted  to  turn 
my  gun  on  the  man,  I  returned  to  the  wagon,  and 
we  drove  on  across  country  that  had  been  cropped 
as  if  by  a  great  herd  of  sheep  by  the  thousands  of 
buffalo  that  had  passed  that  way  on  their  journey 
south. 

Anxious  to  find  picketing-ground  and  water,  we 
reached  the  Arkansas  River,  where  in  a  swale  cov- 
ered with  grass  and  willows  were  paths  cut  by  the 
buffalo.  I  lay  down  in  one  of  these,  and  bringing 
my  gun  to  my  shoulder,  was  just  drawing  bead, 
when  a  large  animal  rushed  across  my  line  of  vision 
at  right  angles  to  the  trail.  I  pulled  the  trigger, 
and  down  went  the  brown  mass  in  a  heap  on  the 
ground. 

Swinging  my  gun  above  my  head,  I  rushed  for- 
ward shouting,  "  I've  killed  a  buffalo !  " — to  find 
that  I  had  shot  a  Texas  cow.  Terrified  at  the 
thought  of  its  owner's  anger,  we  rushed  back  to 
the  wagon,  and,  whipping  up  the  ponies,  sped  away 
as  if  the  furies  were  after  us.  But  cooler  second 
thoughts  led  us  to  the  conclusion  that  the  cow  had 
come  north  with  the  buffalo,  and  was  as  much  our 
prey  as  the  buffalo  themselves. 

Just  before  sunset  we  reached  a  part  of  the  coun- 
try through  which  the  buffalo  had  not  passed,  where 
a  rich  carpet  of  grass,  covering  all  the  plain,  offered 


8  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

plenty  of  food  for  our  tired  ponies.  Here  we  were 
delighted  to  find,  standing  in  a  ravine,  an  old  bull 
buffalo,  which  had  been  driven  out  of  the  herd  to 
die.  Concealing  ourselves  behind  the  carcass  of  a 
cow,  we  opened  fire  upon  him  from  our  Spencer 
carbines,  and  continued  to  riddle  his  poor  old  body 
with  leaden  slugs  until  his  struggles  ceased.  Even 
then,  when  he  had  lain  down  to  rise  no  more,  we 
crawled  up  behind  him  and  threw  stones  at  him, 
to  make  sure  that  he  was  dead.  We  found  his  flesh 
too  tough  for  food;  but  it  was  an  exciting  event  to 
us  two  boys  to  kill  this  massive  beast,  in  earlier  days 
perhaps  the  leader  of  the  herd. 

In  this  connection  I  might  tell  of  a  chase  I  had 
several  years  later,  while  living  on  a  ranch  in  east- 
ern Ellsworth  County.  I  saw  a  huge  buffalo  bull 
come  loping  along  from  the  hills,  headed  for  a  sec- 
tion of  land  that  was  inclosed  by  a  wire  fence.  On 
the  other  side  of  this  section  there  was  a  piece  of 
timber-land,  and  fearing  that  if  he  got  into  the  dense 
timber  I  should  lose  him,  I  rode  after  him  at  the  top 
of  my  speed. 

When  his  lowered  head  struck  the  wire  fence  it 
flew  up  like  a  spring  gate  and  immediately  closed 
down  behind  him.  In  order  to  follow,  I  had  either 
to  cut  the  wire  or  go  out  of  my  way  to  a  gate  half 
a  mile  to  the  south.  I  decided  on  the  latter  course, 
and  applied  quirt  and  spur  to  my  horse,  but  upon 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group  9 

reaching  the  gate,  discovered  my  escaping  quarry 
already  halfway  across  the  section.  I  got  just  near 
enough  to  put  a  bullet  into  his  rump  as  he  passed 
through  the  fence  on  the  other  side,  and  disappeared 
in  the  dense  woods  beyond. 

In  my  excitement  I  shouted  to  my  pony,  and,  dis- 
mounting and  standing  on  the  wire  to  hold  it  down, 
yelled  at  him  to  come  across.  But  a  sudden  fit  of 
obstinacy  had  seized  him,  and  he  would  not  come. 
I  had  to  let  the  fence  up  while  I  thrashed  him,  and 
then  as  soon  as  I  got  it  under  my  feet  again,  he 
pulled  back  as  before.  We  repeated  this  perform- 
ance until  I  was  exhausted  and  gave  up  the  struggle. 

But  upon  casting  a  look  of  despair  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  vanished  buffalo,  I  was  both  astonished 
and  ashamed  to  see  him  standing  under  an  elm  tree 
not  ten  feet  away,  covered  up  all  except  his  eyes 
by  a  great  wild  grapevine,  and  gazing  in  mute 
astonishment  at  the  struggle  between  Nimrod  and 
his  pony.  I  have  always  regretted  that  I  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  confidence  he  placed  in  me,  for  as 
soon  as  I  could  control  my  jumping  nerves,  I  shot 
the  noble  beast  behind  the  shoulder,  and  he  fell. 

I  saw  my  last  herd  of  buffalo  in  Scott  County, 
Kansas,  in  1877.  Antelope,  however,  continued  to- 
be  abundant  as  late  as  1884,  and  only  two  years  ago 
I  saw  a  couple  of  them  among  some  cattle  near 
Monument  Rocks,  in  Gove  County. 


io  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

In  camp,  during  those  early  days,  we  were  rarely 
out  of  antelope  meat,  and  even  now  my  mouth 
waters  at  the  thought  of  the  delicious  tenderloin, 
soaked  first  in  salt  water  to  season  it  and  remove 
the  blood,  then  covered  with  cracker  dust,  and  fried 
in  a  skillet  of  boiling  lard.  In  those  days  a  hind 
quarter  could  be  hung  up  under  the  wagon  in  the 
hottest  part  of  summer,  and  not  spoil.  The  wind 
hermetically  sealed  it,  and  there  were  no  blow-flies 
then.  The  early  settlers  of  a  new  country  bring 
with  them,  and  protect,  their  enemies,  and  destroy 
their  friends,  the  skunks,  badgers,  wildcats,  and 
coyotes,  as  well  as  hawks,  eagles,  and  snakes,  be- 
cause they  kill  a  chicken  or  two  as  a  change  from 
their  usual  diet  of  prairie  dogs  and  rabbits. 

In  those  pioneer  days  the  Kiowas,  Cheyennes, 
Arapahoes,  and  other  Indian  tribes  made  constant 
inroads  upon  the  venturesome  settler  who,  follow- 
ing the  advice  of  Horace  Greeley,  had  come  West  to 
grow  up  with  the  country. 

I  remember  when  old  Santante,  a  chief  of  the 
Kiowas,  came  to  the  post  in  a  government  ambu- 
lance, which  he  had  captured  on  one  of  his  raids. 
In  time  of  peace,  the  Indians  belong  to  the  Interior 
Department  of  the  government,  so  that  all  the 
officer  in  command  at  the  fort  could  do  was  to 
extend  the  old  chief  the  courtesy  of  the  army  and 
care  of  himself  and  team.  Once,  at  the  old  stone 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         1 1 

sutler's  store,  I  heard  him  remark,  after  he  had 
filled  himself  well  with  whisky,  "  All  the  property  on 
the  Smoky  Hill  is  mine.  I  want  it,  and  then  I  want 
hair." 

He  got  both  the  following  year. 

In  July,  1867,  owing  to  the  fear  of  an  Indian 
outrage,  General  A.  J.  Smith  gave  us  at  the  ranch  a 
guard  of  ten  colored  soldiers  under  a  colored  ser- 
geant, and  all  the  settlers  gathered  in  the  stockade, 
a  structure  about  twenty  feet  long  and  fourteen 
wide,  built  by  setting  a  row  of  cottonwood  logs  in 
a  trench  and  roofing  them  over  with  split  logs, 
brush,  and  earth.  During  the  height  of  the  excite- 
ment, the  women  and  children  slept  on  one  side  of 
the  building  in  a  long  bed  on  the  floor,  and  the  men 
on  the  other  side. 

The  night  of  the  third  of  July  was  so  sultry  that 
I  concluded  to  sleep  outside  on  a  hay-covered  shed. 
At  the  first  streak  of  dawn  I  was  awakened  by  the 
report  of  a  Winchester,  and,  springing  up,  heard  the 
sergeant  call  to  his  men,  who  were  scattered  in  rifle 
pits  around  the  building,  to  fall  in  line. 

As  soon  as  he  had  them  lined  up,  he  ordered  them 
to  fire  across  the  river  in  the  direction  of  some  cot- 
tonwoods,  to  which  a  band  of  Indians  had  retreated. 
The  whites  came  forward  with  guns  in  their 
hands  and  offered  to  join  in  the  fight,  but  the  ser- 
geant commanded :  "  Let  the  citizens  keep  in  the 


12  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

rear."  This,  indeed,  they  were  very  willing  to  do 
when  the  order  was  given,  "  Fire  at  will !  "  and  the 
soldiers  began  sending  leaden  balls  whizzing  through 
the  air  in  every  conceivable  arc,  but  never  in  a 
straight  line,  toward  the  enemy,  who  were  supposed 
to  be  lying  on  the  ground. 

As  soon  as  it  was  light  my  brother  and  I  ex- 
plored the  river  and  found  a  place  where  seven 
braves,  in  their  moccasined  feet,  had  run  across  a 
wet  sandbar  in  the  direction  of  the  cottonwoods, 
as  the  sergeant  had  said.  Their  pony  trails  could 
be  easily  seen  in  the  high,  wet  grass. 

The  party  in  the  stockade  were  not  reassured 
to  hear  the  tramp  of  a  large  body  of  horsemen, 
especially  as  the  soldiers  had  fired  away  all  their 
ammunition;  but  the  welcome  clank  of  sabers  and 
jingle  of  spurs  laid  their  fears  to  rest,  and  soon  a 
couple  of  troops  of  cavalry,  with  an  officer  in  com- 
mand, rode  up  through  the  gloom. 

After  the  sergeant  had  been  severely  reprimanded 
for  wasting  his  ammunition,  the  scout  Wild  Bill  was 
ordered  to  explore  the  country  for  Indian  signs. 
But,  although  the  tracks  could  not  have  been  plainer, 
his  report  was  so  reassuring  that  the  whole  command 
returned  to  the  Fort. 

Some  hours  later  I  spied  this  famous  scout  at  the 
sutler's  store,  his  chair  tilted  back  against  the  stone 
wall,  his  two  ivory-mounted  revolvers  dangling  at 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         13 

his  belt,  the  target  of  all  eyes  among  the  garrison 
loafers.  As  I  came  up  this  gallant  called  out,  "  Well, 
Sternberg,  your  boys  were  pretty  well  frightened 
this  morning  by  some  buffalo  that  came  down  to 
water." 

"  Buffalo!  "  I  said;  "that  trail  was  made  by  our 
old  cows  two  weeks  ago." 

Later  the  general  in  command  told  me  that  they 
had  prepared  for  a  big  hop  at  the  Fort  on  the  night 
of  the  fourth,  and  that  Bill  did  not  report  the 
Indian  tracks  because  he  did  not  want  to  be  sent 
off  on  a  long  scout  just  then. 

In  the  unsettled  state  of  the  country  at  this  time 
there  were  other  dangers  to  be  guarded  against  be- 
side that  of  Indians,  as  I  learned  to  my  cost. 

As  a  boy  of  seventeen,  it  was  my  duty  on  the 
ranch  to  haul  milk,  butter,  eggs,  and  vegetables  to 
Fort  Harker  for  sale.  I  cared  for  my  pony  my- 
self, and  in  order  to  get  the  milk  and  other  food  to 
the  Fort  in  time  for  the  soldiers'  five-o'clock  break- 
fast, I  had  to  go  without  my  own.  One  day  I  had 
a  number  of  bills  to  collect  from  the  officers,  but 
as  I  was  unusually  tired,  and  the  officers  were  not 
out  of  bed  when  I  called,  I  put  the  bills  in  my 
inside  pocket  and  started  home. 

As  was  my  custom,  after  leaving  the  garrison  I 
lay  down  on  the  wagon-seat  and  went  to  sleep,  let- 
ting my  faithful  horse  carry  me  home  of  his  own 


14  Life  of  a  Fossil   Hunter 

accord.  I  have  no  recollection  of  what  happened 
afterwards,  but  when  I  reached  the  ranch  my  broth- 
ers found  me  sitting  up  in  the  wagon  moaning  and 
swinging  my  arms,  with  the  blood  flowing  from  a 
slung-shot  wound  in  my  forehead.  I  had  been 
struck  down  in  my  sleep  and  robbed  of  all  the  money 
I  had  on  my  person,  as  it  happened  only  about  five 
dollars. 

Providentially  our  nearest  neighbor,  D.  B.  Long, 
was  a  retired  hospital  steward,  and  the  post  surgeon, 
Dr.  B.  F.  Fryer,  who  was  sent  for  immediately, 
was  just  ready  to  drive  to  town  with  his  team  of 
fleet  little  black  ponies.  He  reached  the  ranch  in  an 
incredibly  short  time,  and,  although  respiration  had 
ceased,  those  two  faithful  men  kept  up  artificial 
respiration  for  hours.  My  oldest  brother,  Dr.  Stern- 
berg,  for  years  Surgeon-General  of  the  Army,  was 
also  sent  for,  and  I  found  him  lying  on  a  mattress 
by  my  side  when  I  regained  consciousness  two  weeks 
later. 

I  might  tell  also  of  the  ruffians  who  at  one  time 
held  Ellsworth  City  in  a  grip  of  iron,  and  how,  until 
they  killed  each  other  off  or  moved  further  west 
with  the  railroad,  the  dead-cart  used  to  pass  down 
the  street  every  morning  to  pick  up  the  bodies  of 
those  who  had  been  killed  in  the  saloons  the  night 
before,  and  thrown  out  on  the  pavement  to  be 
hauled  away. 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         15 

But,  although  I  should  like  to  recall  more  of  the 
incidents  connected  with  the  opening  up  of  a  new 
country,  time  presses,  and  I  must  pass  on  to  an  ac- 
count of  my  work  as  a  fossil  hunter. 

I  had  not  been  long  in  this  part  of  the  country 
before  I  found  that  the  neighboring  hills,  topped 
with  red  sandstone,  contained,  in  isolated  places, 
from  a  few  feet  to  a  mile  in  diameter  and  scattered 
through  a  wide  expanse  of  country,  the  impressions 
of  leaves  like  those  of  our  existing  forests. 

The  rocks  consisted  of  red,  white,  and  brown 
sandstone,  with  interlaid  beds  of  variously-colored 
clays;  while  here  and  there,  scattered  through  the 
formation,  were  vast  concretions  of  very  hard  flint- 
like  sandstone,  often  standing  on  softer  rocks  that 
had  been  weathered  away  into  columns,  the  whole 
giving  the  effect  of  giant  mushrooms,  as  seen  in 
the  cuts  (Figs.  1-3). 

This  formation,  resting  unconformably  on  the  up- 
per carboniferous  rocks, belongs  to  the  Dakota  Group 
of  the  Cretaceous  Period.  The  sedimentary  rocks 
were  laid  down  during  the  Cretaceous  Period,  the 
closing  period  of  the  "  Age  of  Reptiles,"  in  a  great 
ocean,  whose  shore  line  enters  Kansas  at  the  mouth 
of  Cow  Creek  on  the  Arkansas  River,  and  extending 
in  a  northwesterly  direction  in  the  vicinity  of  Bea- 
trice, Nebraska,  touches  Iowa,  and  passes  on  to 
Greenland. 


1 6  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

I  was  carried  away  at  this  time  by  the  thoughts 
that  had  been  surging  through  the  hearts  of  men 
since  Darwin  bade  them  turn  to  nature  for  the 
answers  to  their  problems  concerning  the  plants  and 
animals  of  this  earth. 

How  often  in  imagination  I  have  rolled  back  the 
years  and  pictured  central  Kansas,  now  raised  two 
thousand  feet  above  sea  level,  as  a  group  of  islands 
scattered  about  in  a  semi-tropical  sea!  There  are 
no  frosts  and  few  insect  pests  to  mar  the  foliage  of 
the  great  forests  that  grow  along  its  shores,  and  the 
ripe  leaves  fall  gently  into  the  sand,  to  be  covered 
up  by  the  incoming  tide  and  to  form  impressions  and 
counterparts  of  themselves  as  perfect  as  if  a  Divine 
hand  had  stamped  them  in  yielding  wax. 

Go  back  with  me,  dear  reader,  and  see  the  treeless 
plains  of  to-day  covered  with  forests.  Here  rises 
the  stately  column  of  a  redwood;  there  a  magnolia 
opens  its  fragrant  blossoms;  and  yonder  stands  a 
fig  tree.  There  is  no  human  hand  to  gather  its 
luscious  fruit,  but  we  can  imagine  that  the  Creator 
walked  among  the  trees  in  the  cool  of  the  evening, 
inhaling  the  incense  wafted  to  Him  as  a  thank- 
offering  for  their  being.  All  His  works  magnify 
Him.  The  cinnamon  sends  forth  its  perfume  beside 
the  sassafras ;  linden  and  birch,  sweet  gum  and  per- 
simmon, wild  cherry  and  poplar  mingle  with  each 
other.  The  five-lobed  sarsaparilla  vine  encircles  the 


FIG.  i.— ROCKS  OF  LARAMIE  BEDS  ON  SOUTH  SCHNEIDER  CREEK,  CONVERSE 
COUNTY,  WYOMING. 


FIG.  2.— WEATHERED  ROCKS  AND  LARAMIE  BEDS  NEAR  SOUTH  SCHNEIDER 


FIG.  3. — MUSHROOM-LIKE  CONCRETION  KNOWN  AS  PULPIT  Rocx. 
Elm  Creek,  Kansas,  near  Sternberg's  ranch.     (From  Trans.  Kan.  Acacl.  Sci.) 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         17 

tree-trunks,  and  in  the  shade  grows  a  pretty  fern. 
Many  other  beautiful  plant  forms  grace  the  land- 
scape, but  the  glorious  picture  is  only  for  him  who 
gathers  the  remains  of  these  forests,  and  by  the 
power  of  his  imagination  puts  life  into  them;  for 
it  is  some  five  million  years,  according  to  the  great 
Dana  of  my  childhood  days,  since  the  trees  of  this 
Kansas  forest  lifted  their  mighty  trunks  to  the 
sun. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen,  therefore,  I  made  up  my 
mind  what  part  I  should  play  in  life,  and  deter- 
mined that  whatever  it  might  cost  me  in  privation, 
danger,  and  solitude,  I  would  make  it  my  business 
to  collect  facts  from  the  crust  of  the  earth;  that 
thus  men  might  learn  more  of  "  the  introduction 
and  succession  of  life  on  our  earth." 

My  father  was  unable  to  see  the  practical  side 
of  the  work.  He  told  me  that  if  I  had  been  a  rich 
man's  son,  it  would  doubtless  be  an  enjoyable  way 
of  passing  my  time,  but  as  I  should  have  to  earn  a 
living,  I  ought  to  turn  to  some  other  business.  I 
say  here,  however,  lest  I  forget  it,  that,  although 
struggle  for  a  livelihood  has  been  hard,  often, 
indeed,  bitter,  I  have  always  been  financially  better 
off  as  a  collector  than  when  I  have  wasted,  speaking 
from  the  point  of  view  of  science,  some  of  the  most 
precious  days  of  my  life  attempting  to  make  money 
by  farming  or  in  some  other  business,  so  that  I 


1 8  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

might  live  at  home  and  avoid  the  hardships  and  ex- 
posures of  camp  life. 

With  collecting-bag  over  my  shoulder  and  pick  in 
hand,  I  wandered  over  the  hills  of  Ellsworth 
County.  If  I  chanced  upon  a  locality  rich  in  fossil 
leaves,  thrilled  with  a  joy  that  knows  no  comparison, 
I  walked  on  air  as  I  carried  my  trophies  home ;  while 
if  night  overtook  me  with  an  empty  bag,  I  could 
scarcely  drag  my  weary  limbs  along. 

Among  the  rich  localities  that  I  discovered  was 
one  which  I  called  "  Sassafras  Hollow,"  because  of 
the  countless  sassafras  leaves  I  quarried  there.  It 
it  situated  about  a  mile  southeast  of  the  schoolhouse 
on  Thompson  Creek,  in  the  Hudson  brothers'  neigh- 
borhood, and  lies  at  the  head  of  a  narrow  ravine  in 
a  ledge  of  sandstone,  with  a  spring  beneath.  Here 
too,  the  noted  paleobotanist,  Dr.  Leo  Lesquereux, 
collected  fossils  in  1872,  securing  among  other  speci- 
mens a  large,  beautiful  leaf  which  he  named  in  my 
honor  "  Protophyllum  stcrnbcrgii." 

I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  discovery  of 
another  locality.  One  night  I  dreamed  that  I  was 
on  the  river,  where  the  Smoky  Hill  cuts  into  its 
northern  bank,  three  miles  southeast  of  Fort  Harker. 
A  perpendicular  face  in  the  colored  clay  impinges 
on  the  stream,  and  just  below  this  cliff  is  the  mouth 
of  a  shallow  ravine  that  heads  in  the  prairie  half  a 
mile  above. 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         19 

In  my  dream,  I  walked  up  this  ravine  and  was  at 
once  attracted  by  a  large  cone-shaped  hill,  separated 
from  a  knoll  to  the  south  by  a  lateral  ravine.  On 
either  slope  were  many  chunks  of  rock,  which  the 
frost  had  loosened  from  the  ledges  above.  The 
spaces  left  vacant  in  these  rocks  by  the  decayed 
leaves  had  accumulated  moisture,  and  this  moisture, 
when  it  froze,  had  had  enough  expansive  power  to 
split  the  rock  apart  and  display  the  impressions  of 
the  leaves. 

Other  masses  of  rock  had  broken  in  such  a  way 
that  the  spaces  once  filled  by  the  midribs  and  stems 
of  the  leaves  admitted  grass  roots;  and  their  root- 
lets, seeking  the  tiny  channels  left  by  the  ribs  and 
veins  of  the  leaves,  had,  with  the  power  of  growing 
plants,  opened  the  doors  of  these  prisoners,  shut  up 
in  the  heart  of  the  rock  for  millions  of  years. 

I  went  to  the  place  and  found  everything  just  as 
it  had  been  in  my  dream. 

Two  of  the  largest  leaves  known  to  the  Dakota 
Group  were  taken  from  this  place.  One,  a  great 
three-lobed  leaf,  the  stem  passing  through  an  ear- 
like  projection  at  its  base,  Dr.  Lesquereux  called 
'Aspidophyllum  trilobatum;  the  other,  equally  large, 
—over  a  foot  in  diameter, — and  three-lobed  too, 
but  indented  with  large  teeth,  he  called  Sassafras 
dissectum  (Fig.  4). 

I  believe  I  am  the  only  fossil  hunter  who  has 


20  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

collected  from  this  locality.  Probably  my  eyes  saw 
the  specimens  while  I  was  chasing  an  antelope  or 
stray  cow  and  too  much  occupied  with  the  work  in 
hand  to  take  note  of  them  consciously,  until  they 
were  revealed  to  me  by  the  dream,  the  only  one  in 
my  experience  that  ever  came  true.  I  tell  this  story 
to  show  how  deeply  I  was  interested  in  these  fossils. 
My  first  collection,  or  rather  the  cream  of  it,  was 
sent  to  Professor  Spencer  F.  Baird,  of  the  Smith- 
sonian Institution.  The  following  is  the  letter 
which  I  received  from  him: 

SMITHSONIAN  INSTITUTION, 

Washington,  June  8,  1870. 

Dear  Sir: — We  are  duly  in  receipt  of  your  letter 
of  May  28th,  announcing  the  transmission  of  the 
fossil  plants  collected  by  your  brother  and  yourself, 
and  shall  look  forward  with  much  interest  to  their 
arrival.  As  soon  as  possible  after  they  reach  us, 
we  shall  submit  them  to  competent  scientific  inves- 
tigation, and  report  to  you  the  result. 
Very  respectfully  yours,  etc., 

SPENCER  F.  BAIRD, 
Assistant  Secretary  in  Charge. 

There  was  no  money  in  fossils  at  that  early  day, 
but  I  prized  more  highly  than  money  the  promise 
in  the  letter  that  my  specimens  would  be  studied  by 
competent  authority,  and  that  I  should  receive  credit 
for  my  discoveries. 


FIG.  4. — FOSSIL  LEAVES  OF  Sassafras  dissect  um. 
(After  Lesquereux.) 


FIG.  5. — a,  UNOPENED  LEAF  NODULE;  b,  NODULE  OPENED  TO  SHOW  FOSSIL  LI 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         21 

The  specimens  were  sent  to  Dr.  John  Strong 
Newberry,  professor  in  Columbia  University  and 
State  Geologist  of  Ohio.  He  did  not  find  opportu- 
nity at  that  time  to  publish  the  results,  but  long  years 
afterwards,  in  1898,  I  received  from  Dr.  Arthur 
Hollick  a  copy  of  "  Later  Flora  of  North  America," 
a  posthumous  work  of  Dr.  Newberry 's.  Turning 
instantly  to  the  magnificent  plates,  I  recognized 
some  of  my  early  specimens,  the  first  I  ever  col- 
lected that  were  of  value  to  science. 

Although,  owing  to  the  long  delay  in  publication, 
I  lost  credit  for  them,  and  the  duplicates  which  I 
had  given  to  a  friend  had  been  used  by  Lesquereux 
to  illustrate  some  new  species  accredited  to  that 
friend  instead  of  to  their  rightful  discoverer,  Dr. 
Newberry  kindly  acknowledged  my  work  on  p. 
133  of  his  book,  where  he  says :  "  The  leaf  figured 
on  Plate  X  and  that  represented  on  Plate  XI  were 
included  in  a  collection  made  by  Charles  H.  Stern- 
berg,  and  Lesquereux  has  done  only  justice  to  him 
by  attaching  his  name  to  the  finest  species  contained 
in  the  large  collection  of  fossil  plants  he  made 
there,"  that  is,  at  Sassafras  Hollow. 

In  1872,  just  before  Lesquereux's  great  work, 
1  The  Cretaceous  Flora,"  appeared,  I  learned  that 
the  famous  botanist  was  a  guest  of  Lieutenant 
Benteen,  the  commander  of  Fort  Harker.  Fortu- 
nately, I  had  retained  rough  sketches  of  the  first 


22  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

specimens  I  had  sent  to  the  Smithsonian  Institution. 
So  with  these  I  started  for  the  Post,  where  I 
found  a  reception  in  progress  in  honor  of  the 
noted  guest. 

I  was  introduced  to  the  venerable  botanist  by  his 
own  son,  who  spoke  to  him  in  French,  as  he  was 
almost  deaf.  When  I  displayed  my  sketches,  he 
took  me  to  one  side,  and  in  a  corner  of  the  room  I 
told  him  the  story  of  my  discoveries.  His  eyes 
shone  when  he  examined  the  drawings.  "  This  is 
a  new  species,"  he  said,  "  and  this,  and  this.  Here 
is  one  described  and  illustrated  from  poorer  ma- 
terial." 

I  do  not  remember  how  long  we  talked.  I  only 
know  that  the  golden  moments  sped  by  all  too 
rapidly;  and  from  that  hour  until  his  death  in  1889 
we  were  in  constant  correspondence. 

After  this  all  my  collections  were  sent  to  him  for 
description.  Over  four  hundred  species  of  plants 
like  those  of  our  existing  forests  along  the  Mexican 
Gulf,  some  beautiful  vines,  a  few  ferns,  and  even 
the  fruit  of  a  fig,  and  a  magnolia  flower  petal,  the 
only  petal  so  far  found  in  the  coarse  sandstone  of 
the  Dakota  Group,  have  rewarded  my  earnest  ef- 
forts. The  fragrance  of  this  lovely  flower  seems 
wafted  down  to  us  through  the  myriads  of  ages 
since  it  bloomed. 

Dr.  Arthur  Hollick,  in  his  paper,  "  A  Fossil  Petal 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         23 

and  a  Fruit  from  the  Cretaceous  (Dakota  Group) 
of  Kansas/'  in  Contributions  from  the  New  York 
Botanical  Garden,  No.  31,  says,  on  page  102:  "  In- 
cluded in  a  collection  of  fossil-plant  remains  from 
the  Cretaceous  (Dakota  Group)  of  Kansas,  recently 
obtained  by  the  New  York  Botanical  Garden  from 
Charles  H.  Sternberg  of  Lawrence,  Kansas,  are 
two  exceedingly  interesting  specimens, — one  repre- 
senting a  large  petal,  the  other  a  fleshy  fruit.  Petals 
are  exceedingly  rare,  and  I  am  not  acquainted  with 
any  published  figure  of  anything  of  the  kind  which 
can  compare  with  ours  in  regard  to  either  size  or 
satisfactory  condition  of  preservation." 

Of  the  fig,  the  Doctor  remarks:  "The  fruit  is 
plainly  that  of  a  fig,  and,  although  some  twenty- 
three  species  of  Ficus  have  been  described  from  the 
Dakota  Group,  they  were  based  upon  leaf  impres- 
sions. This  fossil  has  every  appearance  of  many 
dried  herbarium  specimens,  and  it  is  evident  that  it 
must  have  possessed  considerable  consistency  in 
order  to  retain  its  original  shape,  as  it  has  done  to  a 
certain  extent,  under  the  pressure  to  which  it  must 
have  been  subjected." 

In  1888  I  sent  over  three  thousand  leaf  impres- 
sions from  the  Dakota  sandstone  to  Dr.  Lesquereux, 
and  he  selected  from  them  over  three  hundred  and 
fifty  typical  specimens,  many  of  them  new,  for  the 
National  Museum.  Hundreds  of  others,  identified 


24  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

by  him,  were  afterwards  purchased  by  R.  D.  Lacoe, 
of  Pittston,  Pa.,  and  presented  to  the  Museum. 

So  feeble  had  the  great  botanist  become  in  these 
last  years  of  his  life,  that  friends  passed  before  his 
failing  eyes  the  trays  containing  these  great  collec- 
tions. 

In  my  estimation,  America  can  show  no  life  more 
unselfishly  devoted  to  science  than  that  of  Lesque- 
reux,  probably  the  most  scholarly  and  conscientious 
botanist  of  his  day.  He  once  wrote  me  that  he  re- 
ceived a  salary  of  five  dollars  a  day  from  the  U.  S. 
Geological  Survey,  and  out  of  this  he  had  to  pay  his 
artist.  He  labored  with  unfailing  enthusiasm  to 
complete  his  monumental  work,  "  The  Flora  of  the 
Dakota  Group,"  but  by  the  irony  of  fate,  he  never 
saw  his  beloved  book  in  print.  It  was  published  by 
the  Government  five  years  after  his  death,  under 
the  able  editorship  of  Dr.  F.  H.  Knowlton. 

He  passed  away  at  the  age  of  eighty-three. 

"  Born  in  the  heart  of  Switzerland's  mountain 
grandeur,"  he  once  said,  "  my  associations  have 
been  almost  all  of  a  scientific  nature.  I  have  lived 
with  nature, — the  rocks,  the  trees,  the  flowers.  They 
know  me,  I  know  them.  Everything  else  is  dead  to 
me." 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  in  constant  corre- 
spondence with  Lesquereux,  and  his  letters,  which  I 
need  not  say  I  prize  highly,  have  done  more,  per- 


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Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         25 

haps,  than  any  other  thing  to  fix  my  determination 
that,  come  what  might,  I  would  be  a  fossil  hunter 
and  add  my  quota  to  human  knowledge.  The  letter 
here  reproduced  has  been  as  a  lodestar  to  lead  me 
on  past  all  discouragements  in  the  path  which  as  a 
boy  of  seventeen  I  set  out  to  follow.  May  it  shed 
light  upon  the  life  of  some  other  struggler! 

In  1897,  not  having  the  means  to  go  into  the 
vertebrate  fields  of  western  Kansas,  I  spent  three 
months  in  the  Dakota  Group,  although  I  knew  that 
I  had  already  supplied  most  of  the  museums  of  the 
,vorld  with  examples  of  its  flora,  and  that  there  was 
little  interest  in  or  demand  for  the  leaves. 

I  secured  over  three  thousand  leaves,  however, 
and  paid  first-class  freight  on  them  to  my  home  at 
Lawrence.  Then  I  hauled  them  out  to  my  little 
twenty-acre  farm,  four  miles  southeast  of  town,  and 
pitched  my  9x9  wall-tent  for  a  workshop,  flooring 
it  and  putting  up  a  stove.  There  I  worked  from 
November  to  May,  standing  on  my  feet  on  an 
average  of  fourteen  hours  a  day,  with  my  face  to 
the  opening  of  the  tent  for  light,  and  my  back  to 
the  stove.  At  night  I  worked  over  a  coal-oil  lamp. 

With  a  chisel-edged  hammer  weighing  two 
ounces,  I  trimmed  off  the  rough  stone  from  the 
margin  of  the  nodules,  as  illustrated  in  the  woodcuts 
by  Christian  Weber  of  New  York  (Fig.  5,  c,  d, 
e,  and  /),  a  labor  of  love  on  his  part,  for  which  I 


26  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

am  deeply  grateful.  I  smoothed  down  the  rock 
with  emery-stone  also,  and  with  a  No.  i  needle 
pried  away  the  stone  from  the  petioles,  leaving  the 
impression  as  if  it  were  the  leaf  itself  standing  up 
in  bold  relief,  thus  bringing  out  all  its  beauty.  One 
of  my  neighbors,  after  examining  the  prepared 
specimens,  remarked,  "  You  must  have  taken  a  long 
time  to  carve  those  things.  Why,  they  look  just 
like  leaves ! " 

When  no  more  loving  labor  could  be  bestowed  on 
them  without  risk  of  injuring  the  specimens,  I  laid 
them  away  in  trays,  to  be  numbered  and  identified. 
I  knew  that  some  authorities  demanded  the  speci- 
mens in  payment  for  the  labor  of  identification,  and 
as  I  had  to  make  a  living  out  of  my  work,  this 
would  never  do  for  me.  So  after  Lesquereux's 
death  I  undertook  the  work  of  identification  myself, 
although  I  confess  it  hurt  my  conscience,  as  I  had 
never  had  the  training  of  a  botanical  authority.  I 
was  greatly  relieved,  therefore,  when,  after  selling 
two  hundred  and  fifty  specimens  to  the  New  York 
Botanical  Gardens,  I  asked  Dr.  Arthur  Hollick 
whether  my  identifications  were  correct,  to  receive 
the  answer  that  upon  a  casual  examination  he  could 
find  no  reason  to  make  any  changes  in  my  names. 
I  was  certainly  much  encouraged  by  such  words 
from  this  eminent  authority  in  fossil  botany. 

To  return  to  my  great  collection  from  the  Dakota 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         27 

Group,  I  spent  nine  months  of  incessant  labor  upon 
it,  and  my  readers  may  be  surprised  to  learn  that 
I  was  delighted  when  Professor  Macbride,  of  the 
University  of  Iowa,  purchased  it  for  the  munificent 
sum  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  the  price  I 
put  upon  it.  My  delight  was  even  greater  when  I 
received  the  following  letter,  which  is  now  and  was 
then  more  highly  prized  than  the  check  which  it 
enclosed. 

STATE  UNIVERSITY  OF  IOWA. 

BOTANY. 
Iowa  City,  Iowa,  May  I,  1898. 

DEAR  MR.  STERNBERG: 

The  boxes  are  all  safely  here.  We  have  at  present 
no  place  for  the  display  of  the  specimens,  but  have 
opened  the  first  three  cases  and  are  delighted  with 
the  beauty  of  the  material.  I  hope  next  year  to  have 
a  case  for  fossil  plants,  when  I  shall  certainly  make  a 
display  of  these  beautiful  leaves,  and  quote  you  as 
collector.  I  should  think  the  National  Museum  would 
give  you  employment  all  the  time. 

I  trust  you  may  have  a  pleasant  and  profitable  sum- 
mer, and  if  in  future  I  can  in  any  way  serve  you, 
kindly  advise  me. 

Very  truly  yours, 

THOMAS  K.  MACBRIDE. 

This  small  sum  enabled  me  to  go  with  my  son 
George  into  the  chalk  of  Kansas,  where  we  discov- 
ered the  splendid  specimen  of  a  mosasaur,  now  in  the 
museum  of  Iowa  University.  But  for  the  timely 


28  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

assistance  given  me  when  I  most  needed  help,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  Iowa  would  have  secured  this 
treasure.  My  months  of  patient  labor  on  the  leaves 
had  convinced  the  authorities  that  my  work  on  the 
mosasaur  would  be  faithfully  done. 

Before  closing  this  account  of  my  work  in  the 
Dakota  Group,  I  should  like  to  say  a  few  words 
about  the  manner  in  which  the  nodules  are  formed 
around  leaf  impressions,  a  subject  of  which  I  have 
made  a  careful  study  during  years  of  exploration. 
The  illustrations  (Fig.  5,  a  and  b)  show  the 
nodules  before  they  are  opened,  and  the  open 
specimens  before  they  have  been  trimmed,  as  in  the 
other  cuts. 

The  mother  rock,  or  matrix,  as  it  is  called,  from 
which  these  concretions  come,  is  quite  soft  and 
easily  disintegrates  into  yellowish  sand  under  the 
influences  of  the  weather.  Through  this  yellowish 
sandstone  are  scattered  countless  leaf  impressions 
and  their  counterparts,  but  on  account  of  the  soft- 
ness of  the  matrix  it  is  impossible  to  work  out  any 
leaves  from  the  inside  of  the  rock  masses,  and  we 
should  lose  them  altogether  were  it  not  for  the  fol- 
lowing natural  process : 

Falling  from  the  trees  that  grew  along  the  shore 
of  the  Cretaceous  Ocean,  these  leaves  were  covered 
with  sand  by  the  incoming  tide.  Some,  falling  stem 
first,  were  turned  over  into  a  U-shape;  others  are 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         29 

found  lying  flat,  and  others  again  at  various  angles. 
The  sand,  accumulating  through  the  years,  finally 
became  consolidated,  and,  being  in  course  of  time 
exposed  to  the  air,  began  to  "  weather."  In  the 
meantime  the  iron  coloring  matter  of  the  vegetation 
had  been  dissolved  out  by  the  water  and  distributed 
through  the  rock  mass.  As  the  rock  weathers  away, 
the  leaf  impressions  are  hardened  by  the  iron  that 
has  been  dissolved  out  of  the  sandy  mass  by  water 
holding  acids  in  solution.  , 

As  the  soft  rock  about  them  continues  to  wear 
away,  the  nodules  begin  to  appear  above  the  sur- 
face, at  first  only  as  bumps  slightly  elevated  above 
the  surrounding  rock,  but  in  time  as  complete  con- 
cretions, with  the  form  of  the  leaves  imprisoned 
within,  which  are  left  standing  on  pedestals  no 
thicker  than  a  lead  pencil. 

Then  the  first  storm  of  rain  or  hail  breaks  them 
from  their  moorings ;  they  become  independent,  are 
reduced  in  size,  and  constantly  hardened,  so  that 
often  a  nodule  is  almost  pure  iron  ore  a  fraction  of 
an  inch  in  thickness. 

So  the  process  goes  on  and  will  continue  until  all 
the  leaves  within  the  parent  rock  have  been  protected 
by  an  iron  envelope;  and  it  is  this  natural  process 
alone  which  can  save  these  beautiful  impressions 
from  falling  to  pieces  when  the  sand  is  freed  from 
the  rock  by  disintegration. 


30  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

The  locality  from  which  I  collected  these  speci- 
mens I  have  named  the  Betulites  locality,  on  account 
of  the  abundance  of  birch  leaves  of  many  varieties 
which  have  been  found  there.  It  was  discovered  by 
the  late  Judge  E.  P.  West,  collector  for  the  Univer- 
sity of  Kansas,  and  Professor  Lesquereux  honored 
him  by  calling  one  species  Betulites  westii.  He  made 
a  wonderful  collection  of  Dakota  leaves  for  the 
University,  many  of  them  new  to  science.  The  lo- 
cality is  about  a  mile  in  length  and  tops  the  highest 
hills  in  Ellsworth  County. 

I  have  no  record  of  the  thousands  of  fossil  leaves 
I  have  collected  from  the  sandstone  of  central  Kan- 
sas. I  have  never  kept  a  single  specimen  for  myself, 
although  I  love  them  dearly,  and  it  has  often  been 
hard  to  give  them  up.  But  the  object  of  my  life  has 
been  to  advance  human  knowledge,  and  that  could 
not  be  accomplished  if  I  kept  my  best  specimens  to 
gratify  myself.  They  had  to  go,  and  they  went, 
often  for  less  than  they  cost  me  in  labor  and  ex- 
pense, into  the  hands  of  those  who  could  give 
authoritative  knowledge  of  them  to  the  world,  and 
preserve  them  in  great  museums  for  the  benefit 
of  all. 

One  thing  I  have  demanded  as  my  right,  in  my 
opinion  an  inalienable  right,  although  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  there  are  those  who  have  denied  it  to  me, — 
I  demand  that  my  name  appear  as  collector  on  all 


Work  in  the  Dakota  Group         31 

the  material  which  I  have  gathered  from  the  rocks 
of  the  earth. 

"'  I  might  have  sold  to  showmen  or  dealers ;  in  fact 
I  have  the  assurance  of  one  of  the  largest  dealers 
in  America  that  I  made  a  great  mistake  in  selling 
directly  to  museums  instead  of  through  him.  If 
I  had  done  as  he  advised,  the  thousands  of  fossils  I 
have  collected  would  have  cost  the  museums  fifty 
per  cent,  more  than  they  have,  and  my  work  would 
have  been  measured  by  the  money  these  dealers 
would  have  been  pleased  to  allow  me,  and  I  should 
never  have  been  known  as  one  of  those  who  have 
devoted  their  lives  to  the  advancement  of  paleon- 
tology. 


CHAPTER  II 

MY  FIRST  EXPEDITION  TO  THE 
KANSAS  CHALK,  1876 


SPENT  the  winter  of  1875  and  '76  as 
a  student  at  the  Kansas  State  Agricul- 
tural College. 

Here  a  party  was  gathered  to  explore 
western  Kansas  for  fossils,  under  the  leadership  of 
Professor  B.  F.  Mudge,  the  enthusiastic  state  geolo- 
gist and  a  popular  professor  of  the  college.  The  ex- 
pedition was  to  be  made  under  the  auspices  of  Pro- 
fessor O.  C.  Marsh,  of  Yale  College,  whose  efforts 
have  secured  for  that  institution  the  largest  collec- 
tion perhaps  in  the  world  of  American  fossil  verte- 
brates. 

I  made  every  effort  in  my  power  to  secure  a  place 
in  the  party,  but  failed,  as  it  was  full  when  I  applied. 
It  has  always  been  hard,  however,  for  me  to  give  up 
what  I  have  determined  to  accomplish;  so,  although 
almost  with  despair,  I  turned  for  help  to  Professor 
E.  D.  Cope,  of  Philadelphia,  who  was  becoming 
so  well  known  that  a  report  of  his  fame  had  reached 
me  at  Manhattan. 

32 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    33 

I  put  my  soul  into  the  letter  I  wrote  him,  for  this 
was  my  last  chance.  I  told  him  of  my  love  for 
science,  and  of  my  earnest  longing  to  enter  the 
chalk  of  western  Kansas  and  make  a  collection  of 
its  wonderful  fossils,  no  matter  what  it  might  cost 
me  in  discomfort  and  danger.  I  said,  however, 
that  I  was  too  poor  to  go  at  my  own  expense,  and 
asked  him  to  send  me  three  hundred  dollars  to  buy 
a  team  of  ponies,  a  wagon,  and  a  camp  outfit,  and 
to  hire  a  cook  and  driver.  I  sent  no  recommenda- 
tions from  well-known  men  as  to  my  honesty  or 
executive  ability,  mentioning  only  my  work  in  the 
Dakota  Group. 

I  was  in  a  terrible  state  of  suspense  when  I  had 
despatched  the  letter,  but,  fortunately,  the  Profes- 
sor responded  promptly,  and  when  I  opened  the 
envelope,  a  draft  for  three  hundred  dollars  fell  at 
my  feet.  The  note  which  accompanied  it  said :  "  I 
like  the  style  of  your  letter.  Enclose  draft.  Go  to 
work/'  or  words  to  the  same  effect. 

That  letter  bound  me  to  Cope  for  four  long  years, 
and  enabled  me  to  endure  immeasurable  hardships 
and  privations  in  the  barren  fossil  fields  of  the  West; 
and  it  has  always  been  one  of  the  joys  of  my  life 
to  have  known  intimately  in  field  and  shop  the  great- 
est naturalist  America  has  produced. 

As  soon  as  the  frost  was  out  of  the  ground,  hav- 
ing secured  a  team  of  ponies  and  a  boy  to  drive 


34  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

them,  I  left  Manhattan  and  drove  out  to  Buffalo 
Park,  where  one  of  my  brothers  was  the  agent. 
The  only  house,  beside  the  small  station  building, 
was  that  occupied  by  the  section  men.  Great  piles 
of  buffalo  bones  along  the  railroad  at  every  station 
testified  to  the  countless  numbers  of  the  animals 
slain  by  the  white  man  in  his  craze  for  pleasure  and 
money.  A  buffalo  hide  was  worth  at  that  time  about 
a  dollar  and  a  quarter. 

Here  at  Buffalo  I  had  my  headquarters  for  many 
years.  A  great  windmill  and  a  well  of  pure  water, 
a  hundred  and  twenty  feet  deep,  made  it  a  Mecca 
for  us  fossil  hunters  after  two  weeks  of  strong 
alkali  water.  At  this  well  Professor  Mudge's  party 
and  my  own  used  to  meet  in  peace  after  our  fierce 
rivalry  in  the  field  as  collectors  for  our  respective 
paleontologists,  Marsh  and  Cope. 

What  vivid  memories  I  have  of  that  first  expe- 
dition ! — memories  of  countless  hardships  and  splen- 
did results.  I  explored  all  the  exposures  of  chalk 
from  the  mouth  of  Hackberry  Creek,  in  the  eastern 
part  of  Gove  County,  to  Fort  Wallace,  on  the  south 
fork  of  the  Smoky  Hill,  a  distance  of  a  hundred 
miles,  as  well  as  the  region  along  the  north  and 
south  forks  of  the  Soloman  River. 

When  we  left  Buffalo  Station,  we  left  civilization 
behind  us.  We  made  our  own  wagon  trails,  two 
of  which  especially  were  afterwards  used  by  the 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    35 

settlers  until  the  section  lines  were  constructed.  One 
of  them  ran  directly  south,  crossing  Hackberry 
Creek  about  fifteen  miles  from  the  railroad,  at  a 
point  where  there  was  a  spring  of  pure  water — a 
rare  and  valuable  find  in  that  region.  We  camped 
here  many  times,  and  made  such  a  good  trail  that  it 
was  used  for  years.  Our  second  trail  extended 
across  the  country,  striking  Hackberry  Creek  where 
Gove  City  now  stands,  and  led  over  Plum  Creek 
Divide,  whose  high  ledges  of  yellow  chalk  served 
us  as  a  landmark  for  twenty  miles.  From  this  point 
we  could  see  Monument  Rocks,  and  near  them  the 
remains  of  an  old  one-company  post  on  the  Santa 
Fe  Trail.  Our  trail  then  led  up  the  Smoky  Hill  to 
the  mouth  of  Beaver  Creek,  on  the  eastern  edge  of 
Logan  County,  and  followed  the  old  road  as  far 
west  as  Wallace. 

Prairie-dog  villages  extended  west  along  all  the 
water  courses,  and  open  prairies  to  the  state  line, 
and  we  were  rarely  out  of  sight  of  herds  of  antelope 
and  wild  horses.  Near  the  present  site  of  Gove 
City,  on  the  south  side  of  Hackberry  Creek,  there 
is  a  long  ravine  with  perpendicular  banks  ten  feet 
or  more  in  height.  This  ravine  was  at  that  time 
used  as  a  natural  corral  by  some  men  who  made  a 
business  of  capturing  these  wild  ponies  by  follow- 
ing them  night  and  day,  keeping  them  away  from 
their  watering  places,  and  giving  them  no  chance 


36  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

to  graze,  until  they  were  exhausted.  They  were 
then  easily  driven  into  the  ravine  and  roped ;  after 
which  they  were  picketed  on  the  prairie  and  soon 
became  tame.  These  wild  horses  were  swift  trav- 
elers, and  the  most  graceful  of  all  the  wild  animals 
of  the  West,  being  distinguished  for  the  beauty  of 
their  flowing  manes  and  tails. 

There  was  constant  danger  from  Indians,  and  in 
order  that  we  might  escape  as  much  as  possible  the 
eagle  eye  of  some  scout  who  might  be  passing 
through  the  country,  our  tent  and  wagon-sheet  were 
of  brown  duck.  This  blended  with  the  dry,  brown 
buffalo  grass,  as  we  traveled  from  canyon  to  canyon, 
and  could  not  be  distinguished  very  far  even  by  the 
trained  eye  of  an  Indian. 

I  never  carried  my  rifle  with  me.  I  left  it  in  camp 
or  in  the  wagon,  for  I  soon  decided  that  I  could  not 
hunt  Indians  and  fossils  at  the  same  time,  and  I  was 
there  for  fossils. 

I  had  no  unpleasant  experiences  with  Indians, 
however,  although  I  came  very  near  it  once.  It 
was  one  day  late  in  June,  when  we  were  about  three 
miles  north  of  Monument  Rocks.  A  gentle  rain 
early  in  the  morning  had  taken  the  glare  from  the 
chalk  cliffs,  and  as  this  is  a  circumstance  favorable 
to  the  discovery  of  fossils,  I  shouldered  my  pick  and 
started  down  the  canyon,  eagerly  scanning  the  rocks 
on  either  side. 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    37 

About  a  mile  below  camp  I  was  startled  to  come 
upon  a  pony  trail,  so  deeply  cut  into  the  soft  chalk 
that  I  knew  each  horse  must  be  carrying  a  burden. 
It  had  been  made  within  the  hour,  and  as  I  was 
anxious  to  find  out  what  it  meant,  I  took  the  back 
trail  to  the  river.  There  I  found  that  a  large  band 
of  warriors  had  sought  shelter  from  the  rain  in  a 
willow  thicket,  tying  bunches  of  the.  twigs  together 
and  throwing  deer  or  antelope  skins  over  them  to 
shed  the  water.  They  had  squatted  within  these 
shelters  until  the  storm  had  passed,  and  then  cooked 
their  breakfasts,  as  the  live  coals  in  many  of  the 
ash  heaps  testified. 

There  were  no  squaws  or  children  along ;  it  makes 
no  difference  whether  women  are  white  or  red,  they 
always  lose  some  of  their  belongings  wherever  they 
go,  and  there  was  none  of  such  property  at  this 
camp.  The  ponies  had  been  tied  to  the  bushes  and 
not  allowed  to  graze,  showing  that  the  party  had 
not  expected  to  camp  here,  but  had  simply  taken 
shelter  from  the  rain  to  avoid  the  discomfort  of 
traveling  with  wet  buckskin  moccasins  and  leggings. 
I  learned  later  that  it  was  a  large  band  of  Kiowas, 
Cheyennes,  and  Arapahoes,  under  their  famous 
chief,  Crazy  Horse,  going  north  to  join  commands 
with  Sitting  Bull,  in  Montana. 

The  chalk  beds  which  were  the  field  of  my  labors 
once  composed  the  floor  of  the  old  Cretaceous  ocean, 


38  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

and  consist  almost  entirely  of  the  remains  of  micro- 
scopic organisms,  which  must  have  fairly  swarmed 
in  the  water.  They  were  discovered  by  the  late  Dr. 
Bunn,  of  Lawrence,  while  a  student  in  the  labora- 
tories of  the  Kansas  State  University,  after  Dana 
and  others  had  said  there  was  no  chalk  in  America. 

When  the  animals  that  inhabited  this  ocean  died 
or  were  killed,  their  carcasses,  buoyed  up  by  the 
gases  that  formed  after  death,  floated  about  on  the 
surface  of  the  water,  losing  a  limb  here,  a  head 
there,  a  trunk  or  tail  somewhere  else.  These  de- 
tached fragments,  sinking  to  the  bottom,  were  cov- 
ered by  the  soft  ooze  of  the  ocean  floor,  and  re- 
mained there  as  fossils,  while  the  sedimentary  rock 
was  being  lifted  three  thousand  feet  above  sea  level. 

My  explorations  began  on  Hackberry  Creek, 
where  I  went  over  every  inch  of  the  exposed  chalk, 
from  the  creek's  mouth  to  its  head,  in  Logan  County. 
Then  I  searched  the  river  and  the  ravines  that  cut 
into  its  drainage  area  along  the  flanks  of  the  divides. 

Perhaps  a  description  of  a  typical  day's  experience 
in  one  of  the  long  ravines  that  gash  the  southern 
slope  of  the  country  may  be  of  interest  to  my 
readers. 

Human  beings,  in  order  to  accomplish  any  result 
of  moment,  must  be  reasonably  comfortable,  that  is, 
they  must  not  be  overhungry  or  thirsty  or  sleepy. 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    39 

If  they  are,  their  minds  will  dwell  upon  their  dis- 
comforts, and  they  will  accomplish  little,  as  the  hun- 
gry boy,  who  keeps  turning  his  head  in  the  direction 
of  the  sun  and  wondering  whether  it  is  not  almost 
dinner-time,  is  not  likely  to  hoe  much  corn.  My 
first  step,  therefore,  must  be  to  find  water  and  pitch 
a  camp. 

But  often  I  have  no  idea  where  water  is  to  be 
found,  and  must  give  as  much  care  to  the  search 
as  if  I  were  looking  for  fossils.  So  while  the  driver 
follows  me  with  the  wagon,  I  hunt  for  water  and 
fossils  at  the  same  time. 

Both  sides  of  my  ravine  are  bordered  with  cream- 
colored,  or  yellow,  chalk,  with  blue  below.  Some- 
times for  hundreds  of  feet  the  rock  is  entirely  de- 
nuded and  cut  into  lateral  ravines,  ridges,  and 
mounds,  or  beautifully  sculptured  into  tower  and 
obelisk.  Sometimes  it  takes  on  the  semblance  of  a 
ruined  city,  with  walls  of  tottering  masonry,  and 
only  a  near  approach  can  convince  the  eye  that  this 
is  only  another  example  of  that  mimicry  in  which 
nature  so  frequently  indulges. 

The  chalk  beds  are  entirely  bare  of  vegetation, 
with  the  exception  of  a  desert  shrub  that  "  finds  a 
foothold  in  the  rifted  rock "  and  sends  its  roots 
down  every  crevice.  This  shrub  is  one  of  the  fossil 
hunter's  worst  enemies.  Sending  its  roots  down 
the  clefts  in  the  rock,  it  searches  out  the  fossil  bones 


40  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

that  have  been  preserved  there,  and  feasts  upon  them 
until  they  have  been  entirely  consumed,  thus  thriving 
at  the  expense  of  God's  buried  dead.  More  fine 
fossil  vertebrates  have  been  destroyed  by  this  plant 
than  by  the  denudation  of  the  rock,  or  the  vandal 
hand  of  man,  although  both  of  the  latter  have  been 
powerful  factors  in  the  destruction  of  fossils.  In 
those  days,  however,  there  were  no  curiosity  hunters 
to  dig  up  the  precious  relics,  so  that  they  were  more 
abundant  than  they  are  now. 

All  this  time  I  am  wandering  along  the  canyon 
in  search  of  water.  Sometimes  I  cpme  upon  gorges 
only  two  feet  wide  and  fifty  'feet  deep;  sometimes 
for  five  miles  or  more  the  sides  of  the  ravine  will 
be  only  a  few  feet  high. 

I  know  that  there  is  water  at  the  river,  but  it  is 
so  far  away  from  my  work  that  I  go  on  and  on  in 
the  hope  of  finding  some  nearer  at  hand.  Dinner- 
time comes,  and  the  day  is  so  hot  that  perspiration 
flows  from  every  pore.  A  howling  south  wind  rises 
and  fills  our  eyes  with  clouds  of  pure  lime  dust,  in- 
flaming them  almost  beyond  human  endurance.  Still 
no  water.  The  driver,  with  horses  famishing  for  it, 
makes  frantic  gestures  to  me  to  hurry.  To  ease  my 
parched  lips  and  swelling  tongue,  I  roll  a  pebble 
around  in  my  mouth,  or,  if  the  season  is  propitious, 
allay  my  thirst  with  the  acid  juice  of  a  red  berry 
that  grows  in  the  ravines. 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    41 

After  hours  of  search,  I  find  in  moist  ground  the 
borings  of  crawfishes;  with  line  and  sinker  I  meas- 
ure the  depth  to  water  a  couple  of  feet  below  in  these 
miniature  wells.  The  welcome  signal  is  given  to 
Will,  the  driver,  and  he  digs  a  well,  so  that  both  man 
and  beast  may  be  supplied. 

If  I  could  sum  up  all  the  sufferings  I  endured  in 
the  chalk  fossil  fields,  I  should  say  that  I  suffered 
more  from  the  lack  of  good  drinking  water  than 
from  all  the  other  ills  combined.  Except  when  we 
were  in  the  vicinity  of  one  of  the  half-dozen  springs 
that  are  scattered  about  over  an  expanse  of  country 
a  hundred  miles  long  and  forty  wide,  the  only  water 
that  we  had  to  drink  was  alkali  water,  which  has  the 
same  effect  upon  the  body  as  a  solution  of  Epsom 
salts,  constantly  weakening  the  system.  Yet  whole 
neighborhoods  of  settlers  to  this  day  have  no  other 
water  for  themselves  or  their  beasts,  and  they  show 
the  deteriorating  effects  in  their  faces  and  their 
walk. 

If  I  have  found,  scattered  along  a  wash,  the  bones 
of  some  fossil  fish  or  reptile,  as  soon  as  we  have 
pitched  camp  and  eaten  our  meal  of  antelope  meat, 
hot  biscuits,  and  coffee,  we  both  return  with  pick 
and  shovel,  and,  carefully  saving  each  weathered 
fragment,  trace  the  remains  to  where  the  rest  of 
the  bones  lie  in  situ,  as  the  scientists  say, — that  is, 
in  their  original  position  in  their  rocky  sepulcher. 


42  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Then  comes  the  work  in  the  hot  sun,  whose  rays 
are  reflected  with  added  fervor  from  the  glaring 
surface  of  the  chalk.  Every  blow  of  the  pick  loos- 
ens a  cloud  of  chalk  dust,  which  is  carried  by  the 
wind  into  our  eyes.  But  we  labor  on  with  unfailing 
enthusiasm  until  we  have  laid  bare  a  floor  space  upon 
which  I  can  stretch  myself  out  at  full  length.  Lying 
there  on  the  blistering  chalk  in  the  burning  sun,  and 
working  carefully  and  patiently  with  brush  and  awl, 
I  uncover  enough  of  the  bones  so  that  I  can  tell  what 
I  have  found,  and  so  that  when  I  cut  out  the  rock 
which  holds  them  I  shall  not  cut  into  the  bones 
themselves. 

After  they  have  been  traced,  if  they  lie  in  good, 
hard  rock,  a  ditch  is  cut  around  them,  and  by  re- 
peated blows  of  the  pick,  the  slab  which  contains 
them  is  loosened. 

This  is  then  securely  wrapped  and  strengthened 
with  plaster  or  with  burlap  bandages  that  have  been 
dipped  in  plaster  of  the  consistency  of  cream.  In 
the  case  of  large  specimens,  boards  are  put  length- 
wise to  assist  in  strengthening  the  material,  so  that 
it  will  bear  transportation.  Later  I  hope  to  tell  of 
a  method,  originated  by  me,  by  which  the  most 
delicate  fossil,  even  if  preserved  in  very  loose,  fri- 
able rock,  may  be  detached  and  transported  safely. 

So,  as  a  hunter  will  follow  the  deer,  through  thick- 
ets and  over  rocks,  forgetting  hunger  and  cold  and 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    43 

thirst  in  his  anxiety  to  get  a  glimpse  of  his  game, 
that  he  may  add  its  antlers  to  his  list  of  trophies, 
we  fossil  hunters,  Professor  Mudge's  party  and  my 
own,  sought  our  prey  over  miles  and  miles  of  bar- 
ren chalk  beds,  cheerfully  enduring  countless  dis- 
comforts. 

Urged  on  by  enthusiasm  and  the  desire  to  secure 
finer  and  finer  material,  I  went  over  every  inch  of 
the  acres  of  exposed  chalk  along  these  ravines  and 
creeks,  hoping  each  moment  to  find  stretched  before 
my  delighted  eyes  a  complete  skeleton  of  one  of 
those  old  sea  serpents  described  by  Cope,  or  a  speci- 
men of  that  wonderful  Pteranodon,  or  toothless  fly- 
ing reptile,  whose  wing  expanse  was  twenty  feet  or 
more. 

All  day,  from  the  first  streak  of  light  until  the 
last  level  ray  forced  me  to  leave  the  work,  I  toiled 
on,  forgetting  the  heat  and  the  miserable  thirst  and 
the  alkali  water,  forgetting  everything  but  the  one 
great  object  of  my  life — to  secure  from  the  crum- 
bling strata  of  this  old  ocean  bed  the  fossil  remains 
of  the  fauna  of  Cretaceous  Times. 

The  incessant  labor,  however,  had  a  weakening 
effect  upon  my  system  so  that  I  fell  a  victim  to  ma- 
laria, and  when  a  violent  attack  of  shaking  ague 
came  on,  I  felt  as  if  fate  were  indeed  against  me. 

I  remember  how,  one  day,  when  I  was  in  the 
midst  of  a  shaking  fit,  I  found  a  beautiful  specimen 


44  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

of  a  Kansas  mosasaur.  Clidastes  tort  or  Cope  named 
it,  because  an  additional  set  of  articulations  in  the 
backbone  enabled  it  to  coil.  Its  head  lay  in  the  cen- 
ter, with  the  column  around  it,  and  the  four  paddles 
stretched  out  on  either  side.  It  was  covered  by 
only  a  few  inches  of  disintegrated  chalk. 

Forgetting  my  sickness,  I  shouted  to  the  sur- 
rounding wilderness,  "  Thank  God !  Thank  God !  " 
And  I  did  well  to  thank  the  Creator,  as  I  slowly 
brushed  away  the  powdered  chalk  and  revealed  the 
beauties  of  this  reptile  of  the  Age  of  Reptiles.  Its 
snake-like  tail  and  flexible  movements  caused  it  to 
appear  to  Cope  a  veritable  serpent,  so  that  he  put  it 
in  his  new  sub-order  Pythonomorpha. 

I  well  remember  the  terrible  journey  over  the 
rough  sod  to  the  station  with  this  specimen.  I  was 
seized  with  another  attack  of  ague,  and  as  I  jolted 
about  in  the  bottom  of  the  wagon,  I  thought  that 
my  head  would  surely  burst.  Little  I  cared, 
though,  so  that  I  got  my  beloved  fossil  to  the 
Professor. 

And  I  felt  amply  repaid  for  my  sufferings  when 
the  next  winter  I  laid  out  the  skeleton  on  the  plat- 
form of  St.  George's  Hall,  in  Philadelphia,  where 
the  Professor  spoke  for  an  hour  to  a  spellbound 
audience,  unfolding  to  them  the  wonders  of  the 
creatures  that  lived  when  this  old  world  was  young. 
At  the  close,  which  came  suddenly,  as  was  usually 


C      (/} 

^ffi 


'->  z 


—   'C 

-   i 

=    E 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    45 

the  case  in  Cope's  speeches,  before  the  people  had 
had  time  to  come  back  from  the  misty  past,  he 
turned  to  where  I  was  sitting  on  a  step,  and  beck- 
oned me  to  him.  When  I  got  within  reach,  he 
turned  me  around  to  the  audience  and  said :  "  Ladies 
and  gentlemen,  allow  me  to  introduce  to  you  Mr. 
Sternberg,  the  man  who  found  this  beautiful  ex- 
ample of  the  fauna  of  the  Cretaceous." 

He  was  much  pleased  with  the  hearty  applause 
that  greeted  me. 

This  incident  illustrates  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  Cope  which  endeared  him  to  all  his  collectors. 
He  did  not  think  that  the  money  he  paid  them  paid 
for  the  dangers  and  privations  they  endured,  far 
from  their  friends  and  the  comforts  of  civilization. 
On  the  contrary,  he  gave  them  credit  in  all  his  pub- 
lications for  their  discoveries  of  species  new  to 
science.  And  this  is  the  one  essential  thing  to  the 
collector — at  least  the  true  collector  who  values  his 
labor  as  something  that  cannot  be  measured  by 
money.  All  work  done  for  science  has  a  value  above 
that  of  money.  Lesquereux  might  have  made 
money  if  he  had  remained  a  watchmaker,  and  Cope 
would  have  won  a  fortune  as  a  ship-owner  if  he  had 
entered  his  father's  office,  but  both  men  realized  that 
there  is  work  which  offers  higher  rewards  than 
riches;  they  gave  their  lives  to  science,  and  they 
will  never  be  forgotten. 


46  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

But  we  are  far  a-field;  let  us  return  to  the  plains 
and  canyons  of  the  Kansas  chalk  beds. 

I  recall  many  trying  experiences  during  that 
memorable  first  season.  Often  we  got  into  barren 
ground  and  walked  over  miles  and  miles  of  blister- 
ing chalk  with  nothing  to  show  for  our  trouble.  In 
one  locality  the  remains  might  be  very  abundant, 
while  in  another,  perhaps  just  as  promising  in  ap- 
pearance, thousands  of  acres  would  be  entirely  bar- 
ren. But  we  had  to  go  over  it  all  before  we  could 
be  sure  that  there  was  nothing  to  repay  our  toil. 

Once  after  two  weeks  of  fruitless  effort,  we  drove 
into  a  deep  canyon,  cut  into  the  upper  or  reddish 
chalks  near  Monument  Rocks,  which  are  so  much 
richer  in  fossils  than  the  yellow  or  whitish  beds 
farther  east. 

I  had  barely  pitched  the  tent  and  got  among  the 
beds  when  I  discovered  not  only  that  I  was  the  first 
collector  to  visit  the  canyon  but  that  it  was  rich  in 
fossil  remains.  I  found  two  specimens  of  Plate- 
carpus,  a  species  of  Kansas  mosasaur,  in  a  low 
knoll,  separated  by  but  three  feet  of  chalk. 

At  the  same  time  one  of  those  uncomfortable  cold 
rains  set  in,  and  I  was  not  much  encouraged  when 
Will  told  me  that  we  had  no  food  left.  There  was 
plenty  of  corn  for  the  ponies,  but  no  coffee,  flour, 
bacon,  or  canned  goods,  not  even  an  antelope;  and 
we  were  forty  miles  from  our  base  of  supplies.  I 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    47 

would  not  leave,  however,  without  my  load  of  fos- 
sils, as  I  feared  that  during  my  absence  my  rivals 
would  come  upon  this  Eldorado  and  clean  it  out.  So 
the  cook  was  told  to  parch  a  kettleful  of  corn,  and 
we  made  our  meals  on  that.  In  fact,  we  filled  our 
pockets  with  it  and  lived  on  it  for  three  days,  eat- 
ing most  of  the  time  to  keep  ourselves  sufficiently 
nourished. 

We  had  always  depended  for  fuel  upon  the  buf- 
falo chips  which  even  then  were  strewn  about  every- 
where, but  fortunately  we  found  here  an  old  dead 
cottonwood  tree,  a  rare  thing  in  that  region,  where 
even  the  willows  on  the  river  banks  are  short  and 
stunted.  But  for  this  wood  we  should  have  suffered. 

We  remained  there  until  we  had  loaded  our 
wagon  with  eight  hundred  pounds  of  fossil  verte- 
brates. 

During  the  summer  my  constant  use  of  a  large 
butcher  knife  in  cutting  away  the  chalk  from  speci- 
mens caused  a  felon  to  form  in  the  palm  of  my  hand. 
A  fistula  resulted,  and  for  ten  days- 1  slept  but  little, 
and  could  not  work  in  the  field. 

Finally,  worn  out  by  hard  labor  and  constant  at- 
tacks of  ague,  I  felt  that  my  strength  was  failing, 
and  called  on  Professor  Cope  for  an  assistant.  He 
sent  me  J.  C.  Isaac,  from  Illges  Ranch,  Wyoming; 
but  matters  were  not  much  improved,  for  Mr.  Isaac 
had  but  a  short  time  before  seen  five  of  his  compan- 


48  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

ions  shot  down  and  scalped  by  a  band  of  marauding 
Indians,  and  only  the  swiftness  of  his  horse  had 
saved  him  from  the  same  fate.  Consequently,  he 
saw  an  Indian  behind  every  bush;  and,  although  I 
had  never  been  afraid  before  even  when  I  learned 
that  a  large  party  on  the  warpath  had  passed  close 
to  my  camp,  now,  worn  and  tired  as  I  was,  I  became 
infected  with  his  fears. 

When  I  found  that  I  could  do  nothing  to  get  my- 
self out  of  this  mental  condition  and  be  of  further 
use  to  the  Professor,  I  wrote  to  him,  and  was  or- 
dered home  for  rest,  to  meet  him  later  in  Omaha, 
in  company  with  Mr.  Isaac. 

But  before  we  return  to  civilization,  will  my  read- 
ers go  with  me  on  another  expedition  to  these  Kan- 
sas chalk  beds?  "How  fleet  is  a  glance  of  the 
mind !  "  Instead  of  an  arid,  treeless  plain,  covered 
with  short  grass,  a  great  semi-tropical  ocean  lies 
at  our  feet.  Everywhere  along  the  shores  and 
estuaries  are  great  forests  of  magnolia,  birch,  sassa- 
fras, and  fig,  while  a  vast  expanse  of  blue  water 
stretches  southward. 

"  But,"  you  ask,  "  what  is  that  animal  at  full 
length  upon  the  water  in  that  sheltered  cove  ?  " 

Watch  it  a  moment !  It  raises  a  long  conical  head, 
four  feet  in  length  and  set  firmly  upon  a  neck  of 
seven  strongly  spined  vertebrae.  This  powerful  head 
terminates  in  a  long,  bony  rostrum,  also  conical  in 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    49 

shape.  Back  of  the  neck  are  twenty-three  large  dor- 
sal vertebrae,  followed  by  six  pygals,  as  Dr.  Willis- 
ton  calls  them,  to  which  the  hind  arches  and  paddles 
are  attached.  The  body  terminates  in  an  eel-like 
tail  of  over  eighty  elements,  each  strengthened  by 
a  dorsal  spine  above  and  a  V-shaped  bone,  called  a 
chevron,  below;  so  that  a  vertical  section  of  the 
lizard  would  have  a  diamond  shape. 

But  see!  an  enemy  in  the  distance  is  attracting 
our  reptile's  attention.  It  sets  its  four  powerful 
paddles  in  motion,  and  unrolling  its  forked  tongue 
from  beneath  its  windpipe,  throws  it  forward  with 
a  threatening  hiss,  the  only  note  of  defiance  it  can 
raise.  The  flexible  body  and  long  eel-like  tail  set 
up  their  serpentine  motion,  and  the  vast  mass  of 
animal  life,  over  thirty  feet  in  length,  rushes  for- 
ward with  ever-increasing  speed  through  water 
that  foams  away  on  either  side  and  gurgles  in  a  long 
wake  behind. 

The  great  creature  strikes  its  opponent  with  the 
impact  of  a  racing  yacht  and  piercing  heart  and 
lungs  with  its  powerful  ram,  leaves  a  bleeding 
wreck  upon  the  water.  Then  raising  its  head  and 
fore  paddles  into  the  air,  it  bids  defiance  to  the 
whole  brute  creation,  of  which  it  is  monarch. 

A  noble  specimen  of  this  great  ram-nosed  Tylo- 
saur  is  now  mounted  as  a  panel  on  the  wall  of  the 
American  Museum,  in  New  York,  at  the  head  of 


50  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

the  stairs  on  the  right  (Fig.  8) ;  and  a  little  further 
on,  is  a  splendid  skull  of  the  same  species,  which 
I  discovered  on  Butte  Creek,  in  Logan  County. 
Fig.  9  shows  a  restoration  of  this  species. 

Doubtless  many  of  the  ankylosed  bones  which 
we  fossil  hunters  often  find  in  the  chalk  of  the  Nio- 
brara  Group  of  the  Cretaceous  were  broken  by  blows 
from  these  ram-nosed  lizards. 

We  have  in  Kansas  three  genera  of  these  mosa- 
saurs  as  the  celebrated  Frenchman,  Cuvier,  named 
them  in  1808.  The  word  literally  means  a  reptile 
of  the  Meuse,  and  it  was  given  them  because  the 
first  specimen  ever  found  was  taken  from  the  quar- 
ries under  the  city  of  Maestricht,  on  the  River 
Meuse.  For  this  information,  and  for  much  more 
as  to  the  anatomy  of  the  Kansas  mosasaurs,  I  am 
indebted  to  Dr.  Williston's  splendid  work  in  Volume 
IV  of  the  University  Geological  Survey  of  Kansas : 
Paleontology,  Part  I;  although,  of  course,  I  ob- 
tained most  of  my  knowledge  from  the  hundreds  of 
specimens  which  I  collected  myself. 

Among  these  are  four  especially  fine  specimens, 
nearly  complete,  of  the  flat-wristed  Platccarpus 
coryphccus  Cope.  One  of  them  I  sent  to  the  Iowa 
State  University,  with  head,  column,  and  limbs 
nearly  in  position,  and  still  bedded  in  their  native 
chalk.  This  fellow,  who  was  over  eighteen  feet 
long,  must  have  sunk  so  deep  in  the  slimy  mud  of 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    51 

the  ocean-bed  that  even  the  gases  formed  in  his 
stomach  could  not  lift  his  body  to  the  surface.  A 
second  specimen  was  sent  to  the  British  Museum  of 
Natural  History,  in  London;  a  third  to  Munich, 
Bavaria,  and  a  fourth  to  the  Roemer  Museum,  in 
Hildesheim,  Germany. 

This  last  specimen  is  the  best  I  ever  took  from  the 
Kansas  chalk  until  1907.  It  is  twenty-five  feet  long. 
Unfortunately,  the  head  was  all  washed  away,  with 
the  exception  of  the  mandibles  and  a  few  bones  of 
the  skull.  The  most  remarkable  feature  of  this 
specimen  was  the  presence,  for  the  first  time  in  my 
experience,  of  the  complete  cartilaginous  breast- 
bone with  the  cartilaginous  ribs,  which  are  very 
rare.  They  were  described  for  the  first  time  from 
the  noble  Bourne  specimen,  by  Dr.  H.  F.  Osborn,  of 
the  American  Museum. 

This  mosasaur,  Platecarpus,  is  the  most  common 
species  known,  and  is  almost  as  large  as  the  big 
Tylosaurus.  It  differs  from  the  latter,  however,  in 
the  shape  of  the  short,  strong  paddles  and  the  blunt 
rostrum.  The  skull  in  the  illustration  (Fig.  10)  is 
that  of  a  very  fine  specimen,  one  of  my  discoveries, 
which  was  mounted  by  Mr.  Bunker,  of  the  natural 
history  department  in  the  Kansas  State  University. 
I  have  never  seen  a  more  complete  skull,  or  one  that 
shows  the  height  so  well,  in  any  specimen,  unless  it 
is  the  little  Clidastes  velox,  in  the  Kansas  University 


52  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

collection.  You  will  notice  the  triangular  shape  of 
the  head,  with  the  strong  bones  arching  back  to  sup- 
port the  lower  jaw  by  the  pulley-like  quadrate  bone. 
Notice  also  that  the  suspensorium,  instead  of  curv- 
ing down  so  that  its  groove  fits  over  the  rounded 
edge  of  the  quadrate,  is  straightened  out.  This  is 
caused  by  its  having  been  flattened  and  distorted, 
as  nearly  all  fossils  are,  by  the  immense  pressure  to 
which  it  has  been  subjected  Observe  the  conical 
shape  of  the  head  in  front  of  the  eye-rim,  terminat- 
ing in  the  hard,  blunt  rostrum.  It  is  believed  by  the 
authorities  that  a  blow  from  this  ram,  delivered  at 
full  speed,  would  put  an  adversary  out  of  commis- 
sion. 

But  how  did  this  creature  feed  itself,  when  all 
its  teeth  are  for  grasping,  none  for  masticating? 
And  how  did  it  hold  its  prey,  when  it  has  no  claw- 
armed  fingers,  only  weak  paddles  for  swimming? 

In  answering  these  questions,  we  shall  describe 
two  characteristics  of  the  mosasaurs  which  differen- 
tiate them  from  all  other  reptiles. 

If  you  will  look  closely  at  the  photograph,  you 
will  notice,  within  the  head,  and  below  the  eye- 
socket,  a  row  of  recurved  teeth.  These  are  the 
teeth  on  the  pterygoid  bones,  which  are  located  on 
either  side  of  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  near  the  gullet, 
and  are  provided  with  twelve  teeth,  more  or  less. 
The  lower  jaw  with  its  powerful  sweep  on  its  ful- 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    53 

crum,  pressed  the  living  prey  firmly  upon  these 
teeth  so  that  it  could  not  come  forward  and  escape. 
Then  notice  the  ball-and-socket  joint  just  back  of  the 
tooth-bearing  bone  or  dentary,  of  the  lower  jaw. 
After  the  wriggling,  struggling  prey  had  been  fas- 
tened on  the  teeth  in  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  the 
mandibles  were  shortened  by  a  spreading  of  this  cen- 
tral joint,  and  the  victim  was  forcibly  pushed  down 
the  throat. 

The  species  Clidastes  velox  of  these  Kansas  mosa- 
saurs,  was,  as  its  name  indicates,  very  agile,  with 
beautiful  bones  of  so  firm  a  texture  that  they  have 
suffered  less  than  any  of  the  other  fossil  vertebrates 
from  the  vast  pressure  to  which  they  have  been 
subjected,  not  only  from  the  enormous  amount  of 
material  that  has  been  heaped  above  them,  but  from 
the  still  more  powerful  upward  push  which  has 
raised  their  burial-place  three  thousand  feet  above 
sea  level. 

I  sent  one  very  beautiful  specimen  of  Clidastes 
to  Vassar  College;  so  complete,  in  fact,  that  it  can 
be  made  into  a  panel  mount. 

I  think  no  artist  has  more  fully  appreciated  what 
these  great  reptiles  must  have  been  when  alive  than 
Mr.  Sidney  Prentice,  now  of  the  Carnegie  Museum, 
whose  beautiful  restoration,  made  to  illustrate  Dr. 
Williston's  work  on  Kansas  Mosasaurs,  is  here  re- 
produced (Fig.  nb).  I  am  under  obligations  to  him 


54  Life  °f  a  Fossil  Hunter 

for  the  labor  of  his  pencil.  He  has  certainly  put 
life  into  this  denizen  of  the  old  Cretaceous  ocean, 
and  I  do  not  believe  that  anyone,  after  a  careful 
study  of  the  skeleton,  could  find  any  fault  with  the 
restoration,  from  a  scientific  standpoint. 

In  this  connection,  I  should  like  also  to  call  at- 
tention to  the  beautifully  preserved  skull  I  sent  to 
the  Carnegie  Museum.  This  specimen  shows  a  com- 
plete side  view  of  the  head,  with  mandibles  and 
maxilla,  the  teeth  interlacing  as  perfectly  as  in  life. 
The  sclerotic  plates  that  protect  the  eyeball  are  also 
in  natural  position. 

The  luxuriant  life  of  the  Cretaceous  ocean  was 
certainly  remarkable.  Fish  swarmed  everywhere, 
and  often,  as  the  specimens  are  uncovered,  the  scales 
are  picked  up  by  the  wind,  crumbled  into  dust,  and 
scattered  in  every  direction. 

Among  the  most  common  of  the  fossil  bones  in 
those  early  days  were  those  of  a  huge  fish,  whose 
vertebrae,  with  fragments  of  heads  and  jaws,  were 
found  in  great  abundance,  although  no  perfect  speci- 
men has  been  discovered.  Professor  Cope,  who  de- 
scribed this  fish,  called  it  Portheus  molossus.  I  se- 
cured a  fine  specimen  on  Robinson's  ranch,  in  Logan 
County.  It  lay  in  a  small  exposure  of  chalk  along 
a  grassy  hill  slope,  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the 
ranch  buildings.  My  son  George  was  my  assistant 
then,  and  we  got  out  this  specimen  in  the  month  of 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    55 

November.  Our  boarding  place  was  five  miles  away, 
and  every  night  the  ground  froze  hard.  Nothing 
daunted,  we  went  to  work  with  a  will. 

The  head  and  trunk  region  had  already  been  un- 
covered, and  many  of  the  ribs  and  spines  had  been 
swept  away  and  lost.  We  took  up  the  head  and 
front  fins  in  a  great  slab  of  plaster,  as  the  chalk  in 
which  they  lay  had  disintegrated  under  the  influence 
of  the  frost.  A  violent  windstorm  was  raging  at 
the  time,  and  to  complete  the  slab,  George  had  to 
bring  water  from  a  tank  a  hundred  yards  away.  I 
can  still  see  that  boy  running  up  with  his  pail  of 
water,  trying  to  carry  it  so  that  it  would  not  be 
emptied  by  the  raging,  howling  wind  that  was  almost 
tearing  his  coat  from  his  back,  while  I  stood  and 
shouted,  "  Hurry  up !  The  plaster's  hardening !  " 

The  rest  of  the  column,  to  the  tail,  we  took  up  sep- 
arately, and  as  the  great  tail-fins  and  many  of  the 
caudal  vertebrae  were  present  with  their  spines,  em- 
bedded in  solid  chalk,  we  removed  five  feet  of  super- 
incumbent rock,  cut  a  trench  around  the  slab  con- 
taining the  bones,  and  took  it  up  by  digging  under  it. 

This  made  another  huge  mass  to  be  handled.  The 
section  containing  the  head  weighed  over  six  hun- 
dred pounds,  and  this  tail  section  almost  as  much. 
The  latter  froze  solid  before  we  could  get  it  up  to 
the  tent,  where  we  kept  a  fire  burning  to  dry  out  the 
water  from  the  bones  and  thus  prevent  the  inju- 


56  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

rious  effects  of  freezing.  I  should  like  just  here  to 
express  my  gratitude  to  those  ranchmen  who  gave 
their  time  and  strength  to  assist  me  in  handling 
these  huge  sections. 

When  they  had  been  packed  with  excelsior  in 
strong  boxes,  a  wagon  was  backed  up  against  the 
level  platform  which  we  had  made  in  throwing  out 
the  rock  and  soil  that  lay  over  the  specimen.  The 
boxes  were  then  set  on  edge,  and,  with  the  help  of 
boards  and  rollers,  loaded  into  the  wagon  for  ship- 
ment to  the  railroad  thirty  miles  away. 

But  my  troubles  with  this  specimen  were  not 
over;  on  the  contrary,  they  had  just  begun.  When 
the  section  containing  the  head  was  being  raised  on 
to  a  table  in  my  shop  it  fell  and  its  weight  was  so 
great  that  the  head  was  badly  shattered,  as  was  the 
plaster  that  secured  the  bones  in  place  below. 

Then  all  through  the  winter,  while  I  was  trying 
to  dry  out  the  specimen,  so  that  it  could  be  cleaned 
and  prepared  for  shipment,  the  rats,  which  inhabited 
the  walls  of  the  laboratory  in  great  numbers,  kept 
pulling  out  the  bran  and  excelsior  that  had  been  put 
around  the  delicate  bones  to  protect  them;  thus 
causing  the  broken  plaster,  with  the  bones  of  the 
head,  to  sink  lower  and  lower,  as  the  packing  was 
carried  away  from  underneath. 

Driven  to  think  out  some  plan  of  saving  the  speci- 
men from  destruction,  I  conceived  the  idea  of  shov- 


a  b  c 

FIG.  ii. — RESTORATION  OF  KANSAS  CRETACEOUS  ANIMALS. 

(From  drawing  by  S.  Prentice,  after  Williston.) 
a,  Uintacrinus  socialis;  b,  Clidastes  velox;  c,  Ornithstoma  ingens. 


e 
I 


I 


x-c  6 

O     3 

g  | 
il 

II 
[1 

^      <*-c 

^    z 


^ 

w 


T 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    57 

ing  a  number  of  wooden  pegs  of  various  lengths 
under  the  broken  fragments,  so  as  to  push  them  up 
into  their  places  and  hold  them  firmly  there.  All 
the  excelsior  was  then  taken  away  from  beneath 
them,  a  frame  of  lumber  made  around  the  section, 
and  the  whole  space  rilled  with  plaster  which  held 
all  the  broken  bones  in  place. 

In  this  specimen  I  found  for  the  first  time  a  com- 
plete column  of  eighty-five  vertebrae,  a  very  im- 
portant find,  as  these  vertebrae  are  of  so  nearly  the 
same  size  that  in  restoring  an  incomplete  specimen 
there  was  no  way  of  estimating  how  many  of  them 
there  ought  to  be,  and  for  anything  to  the  contrary, 
one  might  go  on  adding  them  indefinitely,  as  a  cer- 
tain man  in  Europe  added  an  enormous  number  to 
his  mounted  specimen  of  a  Zeuglodon. 

This  now  famous  specimen  is  mounted  above  the 
Bourne  Tylosaur,  in  the  corridor  of  the  Halls 
of  Paleontology,  at  the  American  Museum.  Dr. 
Henry  Fairfield  Osborn,  in  his  report  describing  it, 
says :  "  The  noble  specimen  of  which  a  preliminary 
description  is  here  given,  adds  another  to  the  many 
services  which  Mr.  Charles  H.  Sternberg  has  ren- 
dered to  vertebrate  paleontology.  It  was  secured 
by  him  in  the  year  1900,  near  Elkader,  Logan 
County,  Kansas.  Originally  the  specimen  had  been 
probably  complete,  but  portions  of  the  skeleton,  es- 
pecially the  ribs  and  spines,  were  injured  and  partly 


58  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

removed  by  previous  explorers.  The  fish  was  pur- 
chased by  the  Museum  in  1901,  and  mounted  and 
partly  restored,  under  the  direction  of  the  writer, 
by  Adam  Hermann,  with  the  able  assistance  of  Mr. 
A.  E.  Anderson.  Total  length,  from  tip  of  tail  to 
a  point  directly  above  premaxillaries,  15  feet,  8 
inches.  Length  of  skull,  2  feet,  2  inches.  Spread 
of  tail,  3  feet,  9  inches."  (Fig.  12.) 

At  the  time  it  was  mounted,  this  great  predaceous 
fish  of  the  Cretaceous  was  said  to  be  the  most  strik- 
ing example  of  a  fossil  fish  in  any  museum  of  the 
world.  Since  that  day,  however,  a  still  finer  one 
has  been  sent  to  the  Carnegie  Museum.  This  speci- 
men is  much  superior  to  that  at  the  American  Mu- 
seum, as  the  ribs,  spines,  pelvic  fins,  arches,  and 
anal  fin  are  in  position. 

I  should  certainly  be  guilty  of  a  great  injustice 
to  my  friend  and  the  friend  of  paleontology,  Mr. 
W.  O.  Bourne,  of  Scott  City,  whose  name  has  al- 
ready appeared  in  these  pages  in  connection  with 
the  great  Tylosaur  in  the  American  Museum,  if  I 
did  not  give  him  due  credit  for  his  share  in  the 
securing  of  this  specimen.  He  discovered  the  splen- 
did fish  and  tumbled  a  small  mountain  over  on  top 
of  it  to  hide  it.  Then  he  kindly  gave  it  to  me,  and 
after  much  digging,  my  son  was  able  to  get  trace  of 
it.  Mr.  Bourne  showed  his  wisdom  in  thus  covering 
it  up,  not  only  from  the  elements,  but  also  from  man, 


First  Expedition  to  Kansas  Chalk    59 

who,  out  of  curiosity,  has  destroyed  some  splendid 
examples  of  creative  power.  I  shall  mention  one 
or  two  as  object  lessons  before  I  complete  this 
history. 

But  let  us  put  life  into  this  fish,  whose  bones  now 
lie  in  the  Carnegie  Museum. 

We  are  back  again  where  the  two  mosasaurs  did 
battle  royal  for  our  enjoyment.  Watch  that  ripple ! 
It  is  caused  by  a  shoal  of  mackerel  scurrying  in  to- 
ward shallow  water,  in  a  mighty  column  five  feet 
deep.  They  are  flying  for  their  lives,  for  they  have 
seen  behind  them  their  most  terrible  enemy,  a  mon- 
ster fish  with  a  muzzle  like  a  bulldog's,  and  huge 
fangs  three  inches  long  projecting  from  its  mouth. 
Two  rows  of  horrid  teeth,  one  above  and  one  below, 
complete  its  armature.  The  great  jaws,  fourteen 
inches  long  and  four  deep,  move  on  a  fulcrum,  and 
when  they  have  dropped  to  seize  a  multitude  of 
these  little  fish,  they  close  with  a  vise-like  power. 
The  crushed  and  mangled  remains  pass  down  a  cav- 
ernous throat  to  appease  a  voracious  appetite. 

The  powerful  front  fins  are  armed  with  an  outer 
ray  that  moves  on  a  joint  in  the  pectoral  arch,  a  long 
recurved  piece  of  solid  bone,  enameled  on  the  outer 
side  and  more  powerful  as  a  weapon  than  a  cavalry- 
man's sword.  This  single-edged  sword  is  three  feet 
long,  and  commands  the  respect  of  its  owner's  ene- 
mies, the  great  saurians,  or  Kansas  mosasaurs.  Our 


60  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

fish  has  only  to  swim  up  close  to  the  abdomen  of  a 
sleeping  reptile,  and  lay  it  open  for  several  feet  with 
one  sudden  stroke.  If  that  is  not  sufficient,  a  slap 
of  the  powerful  tail,  with  a  span  of  nearly  four  feet, 
finishes  the  work. 

But  see!  nearer  and  nearer  the  great  fish  comes, 
mouthful  after  mouthful  of  the  fishes  falling 
into  its  horrid  jaws.  It  must  be  starving;  so 
eager  is  it  for  its  prey  that  it  seems  unconscious  of 
the  fact  that  the  tide  has  turned  and  is  moving  out- 
ward. Now  it  discovers  its  danger  and  turns,  but 
too  late.  The  water  has  gone  back  to  the  deep,  leav- 
ing it  struggling  for  breath  in  a  shallow  pool.  It 
thrashes  wildly  about  with  its  tail,  whose  sticky  se- 
cretions help  to  envelop  it  more  and  more  thickly 
with  mud  and  slime,  until  at  last  its  struggles  cease. 

And  then  the  scene  changes.  The  old  ocean  dis- 
appears, and  we  stand,  George  and  I,  three  thousand 
feet  above  sea  level,  on  Hay  Creek,  in  Logan 
County,  among  crumbling  ruins  of  denuded  and 
eroded  chalk;  and  working  with  pick  and  shovel  in 
the  burning  sun,  we  bring  the  mighty  carcass  once 
more  to  the  light  of  day. 

But  I  hope  to  take  my  readers  into  this  field  again, 
and  will  pass  on  now  to  my  expedition  in  the  Bad 
Lands  with  Professor  Cope. 


CHAPTER  III 

EXPEDITION  WITH  PROFESSOR  COPE 

TO    THE    BAD    LANDS    OF    THE 

UPPER  CRETACEOUS,  1876 


BOUT  the  first  of  August,  1876,  Mr. 
Isaac  and  I  were  in  Omaha,  awaiting  the 
arrival  of  Professor  Cope  from  Phila- 
delphia. 

We  met  him  at  the  depot,  and  I  remember  his 
watching  me  with  astonishment  as  I  limped  along 
the  street  on  my  crippled  leg.  At  last,  turning  to 
Isaac,  whom  he  knew  to  be  a  horseman,  he  asked, 
"  Can  Mr.  Sternberg  ride  a  horse  ?  " 

Isaac  answered :  "  I've  seen  him  mount  a  pony 
bareback  and  cut  out  one  of  his  mares  from  a  herd 
of  wild  horses." 

That  satisfied  the  Professor,  and  when  we  got 
to  Montana,  he  gave  me  the  worst- tempered  pony 
in  the  bunch. 

We  were  soon  hurrying  along  over  the  treeless 
plains  of  Nebraska,  gaining  in  altitude  every  hour, 
until  we  reached  the  highlands  of  the  Great  Divide, 
and  plunged  down  into  Weber  and  Echo  canyons, 

61 


6  2  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

whose  forests  are  dwarfed  into  miniatures  by  the 
majesty  of  the  mountains  about  them. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  I  had  ever  been  among 
these  stupendous  cliffs  and  ranges,  and  I  held  my 
breath  for  very  wonder  as  they  unfolded  before 
my  astonished  vision.  They  soon  became  familiar 
sights  enough,  but  never,  even  when  I  gazed  every 
day  upon  the  three  Tetons,  with  the  snow  glistening 
in  their  gorges  in  midsummer,  or  upon  the  mighty 
ranges  of  the  Rockies,  did  I  lose  my  feeling  of  awe 
at  the  power  here  displayed  by  the  almighty  Archi- 
tect who  carved  these  wonderful  canyons  and  set 
these  towering  peaks  as  solemn  sentinels  over  the 
works  of  His  hands. 

We  had  the  pleasure  of  Mrs.  Cope's  company  as 
far  as  Ogden.  Then  we  three  men,  taking  the  nar- 
row-gauge railway,  went  on  to  Franklin,  Idaho. 
Here  the  most  uncomfortable  journey  I  have  ever 
experienced  awaited  us, — six  hundred  miles  in  a 
Concord  coach,  through  the  dry,  barren  plains  of 
Idaho.  Our  six  horses  raised  clouds  of  fine  dust, 
which  penetrated  our  clothing  and  filled  our  eyes  and 
ears,  and,  sticking  to  the  perspiration  that  oozed 
from  every  pore,  soon  gave  us  the  appearance  of 
having  the  jaundice. 

I  cannot  begin  to  describe  the  discomforts  of  that 
terrible  ride.  We  traveled  ten  miles  an  hour,  day 
and  night,  stopping  only  for  meals,  which  cost  us 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        63 

a  dollar  each,  and  consisted  of  hot  soda  biscuit, 
black  coffee,  bacon,  and  mustard,  without  butter, 
milk,  or  eggs.  If,  worn  out  from  continued  loss 
of  sleep,  we  dozed  off  for  a  moment,  a  sudden  lurch 
of  the  coach  into  a  chuck-hole  would  break  our  heads 
against  a  post  or  a  neighbor's  head.  I  remember 
that  once  when  the  Professor  was  almost  exhausted 
from  lack  of  sleep  I  took  his  head  in  my  arms  and 
held  it  there,  so  that  he  might  get  a  few  hours'  rest. 
I  should  like  here  to  express  my  gratitude  to  the 
fellow  passengers  who  so  often  gave  me  a  seat  by 
the  driver,  where,  buttoned  in  by  the  leathern  apron, 
I  got  more  than  my  share  of  sleep. 

When  we  reached  the  mountains,  the  beauty  of 
the  scenery  and  the  absence  of  dust  made  the  jour- 
ney more  endurable,  but  we  had  to  walk  up  all  the 
steep  ascents. 

At  Helena  we  laid  off  for  a  few  days.  There  the 
news  was  fresh  from  the  battle-field,  of  Custer  and 
the  brave  men  who  had  followed  him  to  death.  A 
letter  of  his,  written  just  before  he  entered  the  val- 
ley of  death,  was  read  to  us  by  the  proprietor  of  the 
hotel.  I  remember  one  sentence  of  it :  "  We  have 
found  the  Indians,  and  are  going  in  after  them.  We 
may  not  come  out  alive." 

All  was  excitement,  and  the  Professor  was 
strongly  advised  against  the  folly  of  going  into  the 
neutral  ground  between  the  Sioux  and  their  heredi- 


64  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

tary  enemies,  the  Crows.  A  member  of  either  tribe 
might  kill  us,  and  lay  our  death  to  the  other  tribe. 

Cope,  however,  reasoned  that  now  was  our  time 
to  go  into  this  region,  since  every  able-bodied  Sioux 
would  be  with  the  braves  under  Sitting  Bull,  while 
the  squaws  and  children  would  be  hidden  away  in 
some  fastness  of  the  mountains.  There  would  be  no 
danger  for  us,  he  argued,  until  the  Sioux  were 
driven  north  by  the  soldiers  who  were  gathering 
under  Terry  and  Crook  for  the  final  struggle. 

Judging  from  past  experience,  he  concluded 
that  we  should  have  nearly  three  months  in  which  to 
make  our  collections  in  peace.  We  would  leave  the 
field,  he  said,  when  we  learned  that  the  great  chief 
was  being  so  closely  pressed  as  to  be  forced  to  seek 
safety  in  flight  to  the  soil  of  Great  Britain,  across 
the  Sweet  Grass  Mountains  into  Assiniboia. 

His  judgment  proved  good.  It  was  not  until 
November,  when  a  heavy  snowstorm  had  covered 
both  the  fossil  fields  and  grass  for  the  ponies,  that 
Sitting  Bull  gave  up  the  unequal  struggle  against 
cold  and  the  Boys  in  Blue,  and  retreated  to  a  more 
friendly  soil. 

At  Fort  Benton  we  found  a  typical  frontier  town 
of  that  day, — streets  paved  with  playing-cards,  and 
whisky  for  sale  in  open  saloons  and  groceries.  Our 
presence  had  been  heralded  abroad  during  our  stay 
in  Helena,  and  the  Professor  had  difficulty  in  secur- 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        65 

ing  an  outfit  without  paying  an  exorbitant  price  for 
it.  They  knew  him  to  be  a  stranger,  and  they  "  took 
him  in." 

Finally,  however,  he  secured  four  horses  for  the 
wagon.  The  wheelers  were  worn-out  mustangs, 
which  we  were  obliged  to  punish  constantly  to  keep 
at  work,  while  one  of  the  leaders,  a  fine  four- 
year-old  colt,  had  to  be  knocked  down  half  a  dozen 
times  before  he  could  be  taught  not  to  balk  and 
strike  out  with  his  fore  feet  at  everyone  who  came 
within  reach.  The  other  leader,  old  Major,  was  as 
true  as  steel,  and  often  saved  the  day,  doing  his 
duty  nobly  in  spite  of  the  miserable  company  in 
which  he  was  forced  to  work. 

The  first  night  Mr.  Isaac  and  I  slept  outside  the 
town,  with  the  four  wagon  horses  and  the  three  sad- 
dle ponies,  which  were  all  picketed  with  new  rope. 
In  the  middle  of  the  night,  we  heard  an  animal 
groaning,  and  rushed  out,  to  find  our  four-year-old 
cut  fearfully  beneath  the  fetlocks  by  the  ropes.  We 
had  to  cut  him  loose,  help  him  up,  and  bind  his 
wounds.  He  was  able  to  travel  the  next  day,  how- 
ever, and  his  accident  was  not  altogether  a  misfor- 
tune, as  he  was  too  sore  for  some  time  afterwards 
to  show  his  natural  disposition. 

We  drove  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  Judith  River, 
opposite  Claggett,  where  an  Indian  trader  had  a 
store  inclosed  in  a  stockade.  Here  we  went  into 


66  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

camp.  Across  the  river  were  the  lodges  of  two 
thousand  Crow  Indians,  who  were  preparing  for 
their  annual  buffalo  hunt  in  this  neutral  ground, 
where  Sioux  and  Crow  alike  buried  the  hatchet 
while  they  hunted  the  game  that  was  their  principal 
sustenance. 

Mr.  Isaac,  with  the  dread  of  the  Redman  still  in 
his  heart,  insisted  that  we  must  protect  the  camp 
by  standing  guard  over  it  turn  and  turn  about,  and 
to  pacify  him,  the  guard  was  mounted.  I  took  the 
first  turn,  and  Mr.  Isaac  the  second. 

The  Professor  did  me  the  honor  of  sharing  his 
tent  with  me,  and  we  were  just  dozing  off  when  we 
heard  Mr.  Isaac  shout  "  Halt !  "  Looking  out,  we 
saw  an  Indian  approaching,  with  his  squaw  behind 
him,  the  moonlight  bringing  out  their  forms  in  bold 
relief. 

"Halt!  Halt!"  called  Isaac,  leveling  his  Win- 
chester, but  the  Indian,  followed  by  his  faithful 
squaw,  continued  to  advance  up  to  the  very  muzzle 
of  the  gun,  repeating,  "  Me  good  Indian !  Me  good 
Indian ! " 

Cope  dressed  and  went  out,  and  found  that  the 
Indian  had  mistaken  us  for  illicit  whisky  dealers, 
and  come  over  to  get  a  supply.  The  Professor  told 
the  man  to  go  to  sleep  under  the  wagon,  and  at  day- 
light to  recross  and  invite  half  a  dozen  of  the  prin- 
cipal chiefs  to  breakfast  with  us. 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        67 

The  two  Indians  lay  down  and  went  to  sleep  as 
directed,  but  they  had  just  begun  to  snore  peace- 
fully when  Isaac's  turn  at  guard  duty  was  over,  and 
he  came  to  the  wagon  to  wake  the  cook,  a  slow, 
heavy  man,  whose  fat  cheeks  had  induced  the  Pro- 
fessor to  believe  that  he  could  cook  digestible  food. 
The  scout  Cope  had  hired  was  not  on  hand,  although 
he,  as  well  as  the  cook,  had  demanded  his  pay  in 
advance  before  he  would  accompany  us. 

After  much  growling,  the  cook  got  up,  and  re- 
membering that  he  had  left  his  shoes  under  the 
wagon,  went  to  get  them  and  came  upon  the  sleep- 
ing beauties.  Without  more  ado,  he  seized  their 
dirty  blanket  in  both  hands  and  coolly  hauled  them 
out  on  to  the  open  prairie.  After  which  he  pro- 
ceeded to  get  his  shoes. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  it  was  Cope's  turn 
to  go  on  guard.  He  was  awakened,  but  as  his 
Spencer  carbine  was  at  the  bottom  of  his  trunk, 
and  perhaps,  too,  because  he  was  a  Friend,  and  did 
not  believe  in  war,  he  refused  to  get  up;  and  we 
slept  in  safety  the  rest  of  the  night  without  a 
guard. 

Just  before  breakfast  the  Professor,  as  was  his 
custom,  was  washing  his  set  of  false  teeth  in  a  basin 
of  water,  when  a  party  of  six  stalwart  chieftains 
strode  up  in  single  file,  in  answer  to  his  invitation 
through  the  brave  we  had  entertained. 


68  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Quickly  slipping  the  teeth  into  his  mouth,  Cope 
advanced  with  a  smiling  face  to  greet  his  guests, 
who  shouted  as  one  man,  "  Do  it  again !  Do  it 
again!"  He  repeated  the  performance  for  them 
again  and  again,  much  to  their  mystification. 

After  they  had  tried  to  pull  out  their  own  and 
each  other's  teeth,  and  had  failed,  they  settled  down 
to  breakfast.  The  cook  poured  out  their  coffee  for 
them,  and  when  they  had  had  enough  they  shouted, 
"When!" 

We  never  knew  whether  this  hospitality  was  of 
any  benefit  to  us,  as  the  whole  tribe  went  on  their 
buffalo  hunt,  and  we  saw  no  more  of  them,  but  very 
likely  their  chiefs  forbade  petty  stealing  from  our 
camp,  for  we  lost  nothing. 

We  crossed  the  Missouri,  here  a  clear,  sparkling 
stream,  and  the  Judith  River,  and  went  into  camp 
in  the  narrow  valley  of  Dog  Creek,  in  the  midst  of 
the  fossil  fields  which  we  had  come  so  far  and  at 
such  risks  to  explore. 

All  about  us  stretched  the  interminable  labyrinths 
of  the  Bad  Lands.  Above  us  lay  twelve  hundred 
feet  of  denuded  rock,  which  Cope  at  that  time  be- 
lieved to  belong  to  several  formations.  The  rock 
consists  of  great  beds  of  black  shale,  which  disin- 
tegrates on  the  surface  into  a  fine,  black  dust.  The 
lower  levels  contain  many  beds  of  lignite,  which 
makes  a  good  soft  coal,  and  burns  readily.  We 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        69 

found  beds  four  feet  thick  along  the  canyons.  All 
one  had  to  do  was  to  drive  up  to  the  face  of  the 
cliff  and  load  a  wagon  in  a  few  minutes. 

As  soon  as  the  first  streak  of  daylight  appeared, 
we  breakfasted  and  were  off,  our  picks  tied  to  our 
saddles,  our  collecting-bags  dangling  from  the  pom- 
mels, and  a  lunch  of  cold  bacon  and  hardtack  in 
our  saddle-bags. 

I  usually  rode  beside  the  Professor,  my  mount 
a  treacherous  black  mustang,  who  was  ever  on  the 
watch  to  regain  his  liberty.  A  curb  bit  that  almost 
tore  his  mouth  to  pieces  was  my  only  means  of  re- 
straining him.  My  right  ear  being  totally  deaf,  I 
usually  rode  at  the  Professor's  right,  when  the  trail 
would  admit  of  our  traveling  abreast.  He  was  not 
always  in  a  talkative  mood,  but  when  he  began  to 
speak  of  the  wonderful  animals  of  this  earth,  those 
of  long  ago  and  those  of  to-day,  so  absorbed  did  he 
become  in  his  subject  that  he  talked  on  as  if  to  him- 
self, looking  straight  ahead  and  rarely  turning  to- 
ward me,  while  I  listened  entranced. 

Not  so  that  wicked  black  mustang  of  mine.  Sud- 
denly his  front  feet  would  leave  the  ground,  and  he 
would  stand  up  at  full  length  on  his  hind  legs. 
Then  feeling  the  gouging  of  the  Spanish  bit,  he 
would  drop  and  run  ahead  to  the  Professor's  left 
side.  When  the  Professor,  happening  to  look  up, 
found  the  place  where  I  had  been  vacant,  he  would 


jo  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

exclaim  in  surprise,  "  Why,  I  thought  you  were  on 
my  right,  and  here  you  are  on  my  left ! " 

The  pony  repeated  this  trick  whenever  I  became 
so  deeply  interested  in  the  Professor's  talk  as  to 
loosen  my  hold  on  the  reins. 

On  the  very  top  of  the  Bad  Lands  were  the 
Judith  River  beds,  now  known,  through  the  re- 
searches of  the  late  Professor  J.  B.  Hatcher,  to  be- 
long to  the  Fort  Pierre  Group  of  the  Upper  Creta- 
ceous. Here  tablelands  and  level  prairies  offered 
plenty  of  grass  for  our  ponies;  so  we  climbed  to 
these  heights,  picketed  our  horses,  and  went  into 
the  gorges  in  search  of  fossils.  It  was  necessary 
to  give  the  loose  shale  the  most  careful  examina- 
tion, as  only  a  streak  of  dust  a  little  different  in 
color  from  the  uniform  black  around  it,  indicated 
where  the  bones  were  buried. 

As  a  result  of  the  loose  composition  of  this  friable 
black  shale  and  the  overlying  rocks  of  sandstone, 
the  Missouri  has  lowered  its  bed  twelve  hundred  feet 
below  the  level  of  the  prairies,  and  the  whole  coun- 
try is  cut  up  by  a  perfect  labyrinth  of  canyons  and 
lateral  ravines  into  a  dreary  landscape  of  utter 
barrenness. 

At  night  the  view  from  above  of  these  intricate 
passages  was  appalling.  The  black  material  of 
which  the  rocks  are  composed  did  not  permit  a 
single  ray  of  light  to  penetrate  the  depths  below, 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        71 

and  the  ebony-like  darkness  seemed  dense  enough 
to  cut. 

Long  ridges,  terminating  in  perpendicular  cliffs, 
whose  bases  impinge  upon  the  river  a  thousand  feet 
below,  extend  back  into  the  country  for  miles.  Often 
they  are  cut  by  lateral  ravines  into  peaks  and  pin- 
nacles, obelisks  and  towers,  and  other  fantastic 
forms.  These  ridges  are  so  narrow  that  we  could 
hardly  walk  along  them,  and  their  sides  drop  at  an 
angle  of  forty-five  degrees.  It  was  only  the  dis- 
integrated shale  on  the  surface,  into  which  our  feet 
sank  at  every  step,  that  gave  us  a  foothold  and  kept 
us  from  shooting  with  frightful  velocity  into  the 
gorges  below. 

One  day  the  Professor  asked  me  to  climb  to  a 
point  near  the  summit  of  a  lofty  ridge,  crowned  by 
two  massive  ledges  of  sandstone,  four  feet  thick, 
which  projected  over  the  steep  slope  like  the  win- 
dow sills  of  some  Titanic  building.  These  ledges, 
one  above  the  other  and  separated  by  sixty  feet 
of  shale,  had  been  swept  clean  for  about  three  feet, 
so  that  I  found  an  easy  pathway  for  my  feet,  when 
after  laborious  climbing  I  reached  the  lower  ledge. 
From  my  lofty  perch  I  had  a  bird's-eye  view  of 
mile  upon  mile  of  the  wonderful  Bad  Lands,  a  scene 
of  desolation  such  as  no  pen  can  picture. 

It  was  my  duty  to  search  every  square  inch  of  the 
dust-covered  slope  between  the  ledges  for  fossil 


72  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

bones.  After  much  unsuccessful  effort,  I  came  to  a 
place  at  the  head  of  a  gorge,  where  a  perpendicular 
escarpment  dropped  downward  for  a  thousand  feet. 
The  upper  ledge  of  sandstone  had  broken  loose  for 
a  space  of  thirty  feet,  and  this  huge  mass  of  rock, 
four  feet  thick,  carrying  with  it  the  loose  dirt  and 
polishing  the  underlying  surface  as  it  thundered 
down  the  slope,  had  struck  the  lower  ledge  with  such 
force  that  it  too  had  broken  loose  and  plunged  down- 
ward into  the  abyss.  A  grove  of  pine  trees  at  the 
base  of  the  cliff  had  been  crushed  to  the  earth  by 
this  avalanche.  To  my  view  the  remaining  trees, 
which  I  knew  to  be  about  fifty  feet  high,  appeared 
like  seedlings,  and  the  vast  mass  of  rock  like  a 
cobblestone. 

I  concluded  that  I  should  have  no  difficulty  in 
crawling  across  the  smooth  space,  for  I  reasoned 
that  if  I  began  to  slip,  I  could  drive  the  sharp  end 
of  my  pick  into  the  soft  rock  and  thus  stop  myself. 
So,  climbing  up  the  slope  through  the  loose  earth 
to  the  base  of  the  upper  ledge,  I  started  to  cross. 
When  I  was  halfway  over  I  began  to  slip,  and  con- 
fidently raising  my  pick,  struck  the  rock  with  all 
my  might.  God  grant  that  I  may  never  again  feel 
such  horror  as  I  felt  then,  when  the  pick,  upon 
which  I  had  depended  for  safety,  rebounded  as  if  it 
had  been  polished  steel,  as  useless  in  my  hands  as  a 
bit  of  straw.  I  struck  frantically  again  and  yet 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        73 

again,  but  all  the  time  I  was  sliding  down  with 
ever-increasing  rapidity  toward  the  edge  of  the 
abyss,  safety  on  either  side  and  certain  and  awful 
death  below. 

I  remember  that  I  gave  up  all  hope  of  escape, 
and  that  after  the  first  shock  I  felt  no  fear  of  death ; 
but  the  few  moments  of  my  slide  seemed  hours, 
measured  by  the  rapidity  with  which  my  mind 
worked.  Everything,  it  seemed  to  me,  that  I  had 
ever  done  or  thought  spread  itself  out  before  my 
mind's  eye  as  vividly  as  the  wonderful  panorama 
of  the  cliffs  and  canyons  upon  which  I  had  been 
gazing  a  few  moments  before.  All  the  scenes  of  my 
life,  from  childhood  up,  were  re-enacted  here  with 
the  same  emotions  of  pleasure  or  pain.  I  saw  dis- 
tinctly the  people  I  had  known,  many  of  them  long 
forgotten.  My  mother  seemed  to  stand  out  more 
prominently  than  anyone  else,  and  I  wondered  what 
she  would  think  when  she  heard  that  I  had  been 
dashed  to  pieces.  I  even  planned  how,  when  I  did 
not  return  to  camp,  Cope  would  set  out  to  find  me, 
following  my  footsteps  into  the  loose  dirt  until  he 
reached  the  slide,  and  I  wondered  how  he  would  ever 
get  down  into  the  canyon,  and  how  much  of  my  body 
would  be  left  for  burial. 

To  this  day  I  do  not  know  how  I  escaped.  I  sud- 
denly found  myself  lying  on  the  ledge,  on  the  side 
I  had  left  a  moment  before.  Probably  some  part  of 


74  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

my  clothing,  covered  with  dust  as  it  was,  had  acted 
as  a  brake  upon  the  polished  surface.  I  lay  for  an 
hour  with  trembling  knees,  too  weak  to  make  my 
way  back  to  camp. 

This  experience  of  mine  is  another  instance  of  the 
fact  that  the  human  brain  forgets  nothing,  and  will 
yield  up  everything  when  the  right  kind  of  stimulus 
is  applied. 

The  excitement  of  our  work  and  the  danger  with 
if  seemed  to  make  us  reckless  of  life,  Professor 
Cope  even  more  so  than  the  rest  of  us,  although  he 
was  at  that  time  United  States  Paleontologist,  and 
worth  a  million  dollars.  I  remember  one  night  he 
was  following  a  buffalo  trail  to  the  river,  when  sud- 
denly his  horse  stopped  and  refused  to  go  further. 
Without  dismounting  to  find  out  the  cause,  he 
plunged  his  spurs  into  the  animal,  and  it  sprang  into 
the  air.  Mr.  Isaac,  who  was  behind,  followed.  The 
next  day  they  were  surprised  to  find  that  they  had 
crossed  a  gorge  ten  feet  wide,  and  that  but  for  the 
keen  sight  and  the  strength  of  their  horses,  they 
would  have  been  dashed  to  pieces  a  hundred  feet 
below. 

Cope's  indefatigability,  too,  was  a  constant  source 
of  wonder  to  us.  We  were  in  excellent  training, 
after  our  strenuous  outdoor  life  in  the  Kansas 
chalk  beds,  while  he  had  just  been  working  four- 
teen hours  a  day  in  his  study  and  the  lithographer's 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        75 

shop,  completing  a  large  Government  monograph, 
writing  his  own  manuscript,  and  reading  his  own 
proof.  When  we  first  met  him  at  Omaha,  he  was 
so  weak  that  he  reeled  from  side  to  side  as  he 
walked;  yet  here  he  climbed  the  highest  cliffs  and 
walked  along  the  most  dangerous  ledges,  working 
without  intermission  from  daylight  until  dark. 

Every  night  when  we  returned  to  camp,  we  found 
that  the  cook  had  spent  the  whole  day  in  cooking. 
Exhausted  and  thirsty, — we  had  no  water  to  drink 
during  the  day  (all  the  water  in  the  Bad  Lands  be- 
ing like  a  dense  solution  of  Epsom  salts), — we  sat 
down  to  a  supper  of  cakes  and  pies  and  other  pala- 
table, but  indigestible  food.  Then,  when  we  went  to 
bed,  the  Professor  would  soon  have  a  severe  attack 
of  nightmare.  Every  animal  of  which  we  had 
found  traces  during  the  day  played  with  him  at 
night,  tossing  him  into  the  air,  kicking  him,  tramp- 
ling upon  him. 

When  I  waked  him,  he  would  thank  me  cordially 
and  lie  down  to  another  attack.  Sometimes  he 
would  lose  half  the  night  in  this  exhausting  slum- 
ber. But  the  next  morning  he  would  lead  the  party, 
and  be  the  last  to  give  up  at  night.  I  have  never 
known  a  more  wonderful  example  of  the  will's 
power  over  the  body. 

His  memory  and  his  imagination,  too,  were  ex- 
traordinary. He  used  to  talk  to  me  by  the  hour, 


j6  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

arranging  the  living  and  dead  animals  of  the  earth 
in  systematic  order,  giving  countless  scientific  names 
and  their  definitions.  I  forgot  the  names  as  soon 
as  I  heard  them,  but  the  loving  tribute  which  he  paid 
to  the  wonders  of  creation  has  had  a  lasting  and 
helpful  effect  upon  me.  If  I  ever  had  any  feelings 
of  disgust  or  fear  toward  any  of  God's  creatures, 
I  lost  them  upon  a  knowledge  of  the  animals  as  re- 
vealed to  me  by  this  master  naturalist,  who  saw 
beauty  even  in  lizards  and  snakes.  He  believed,  and 
taught  me  to  believe,  that  it  is  a  crime  to  destroy 
life  wantonly,  any  life.  Of  course  the  first  law  of 
nature  is  self-preservation;  we  must,  in  order  to 
live,  kill  our  enemies  and  protect  our  friends;  but 
this  superstitious  fear  which  men  and,  even  more, 
women  have  of  snakes,  lizards,  and  bugs,  how  cruel 
it  is!  Why  should  they  rejoice  when  some  poor 
little  garter-snake,  which  has  gone  as  a  friend  into 
the  cellar  walls^  to  destroy  rats  and  mice,  is  dragged 
out  and  cut  to  pieces?  My  heart  bleeds  when  I 
think  of  the  brutal  way  in  which  people  take  life, 
something  they  can  never  give  back,  and  with  the 
great  Cope,  I  cry  out  against  this  crime,  which  is 
exterminating  some  of  our  most  beautiful  and  use- 
ful friends.  No  man  can  say  he  loves  us,  when  he 
wantonly  destroys  our  work;  no  man  loves  God  who 
wantonly  destroys  His  creatures. 

We  found  no  complete  specimens  of  any  fossil 


si 


2    o 
?   g 

II 

<    ft 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        77 

animals  during  our  stay  on  Dog  Creek,  but  near  the 
summit  of  the  Bad  Lands,  under  beds  of  yellowish 
sandstone,  we  came  upon  localities  literally  filled 
with  the  scattered  bones  and  teeth  of  dinosaurs, 
those  terrible  lizards  whose  tread  once  shook  the 
earth.  They  are  represented  now  by  the  little 
horned  toad  of  central  Kansas.  Among  the  frag- 
ments were  pieces  of  the  finely-sculptured  shells  of 
the  sea  turtles,  Trionyx  and  Adocus,  and  remains  of 
that  strange  dinosaur  Trachodon  (Fig.  I3a),  whose 
teeth  were  arranged  as  in  a  magazine,  one  below 
another,  so  that  when  the  old  teeth  wore  out,  others 
were  ever  ready  to  take  their  place. 

The  specimen  in  the  illustration  is  from  Drs. 
Osborn  and  Lambe's  Contribution  to  Canadian 
Paleontology,  on  the  Vertebrata  of  the  Mid-Cre- 
taceous of  the  Northwest  Territory  (1902).  The 
splendid  Cretaceous  dinosaur  here  illustrated  is  from 
Wyoming  (Fig.  14).  This  last  form  was  restored 
by  the  late  Professor  Marsh,  and  is  now  mounted  in 
the  museum  of  Yale  University.  What  a  strange 
picture  it  presents,  this  great  plant-eater,  as,  stand- 
ing on  its  hind  limbs,  its  powerful  tail  acting  as  the 
third  leg  of  a  tripod,  it  grasps  the  branches  of  a 
tree  with  its  weak  hands  and  arms,  while  its  teeth 
scrape  off  the  tender  leaves ! 

In  one  of  these  localities  we  found  teeth  belong- 
ing to  some  extinct  ray-like  fish  that  were  arranged 


78  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

in  the  roof  and  floor  of  the  mouth  like  bricks  in  a 
pavement,  forming  a  sort  of  mill  which  ground  up 
the  shells  upon  which  the  creature  subsisted.  A 
strange  thing  about  these  teeth  was  that  one  side 
of  the  enamel  was  white  and  the  other  black.  Cope 
called  the  species  Myledaphus  bipartitus  (Fig.  I3&). 

The  diamond-shaped  enameled  scales  of  the  Lepi- 
dotus,  an  ancient  relative  of  the  gar-pike,  were  very 
common,  as  were  also  the  teeth  of  several  species 
of  dinosaurs  besides  those  already  mentioned. 

To-day  the  great  museums  of  the  country  have 
complete  or  nearly  complete  skeletons  of  these  crea- 
tures, the  largest  land  animals  that  ever  inhabited 
the  earth.  The  splendid  specimen  of  Brontosaurns 
(Fig.  16)  in  the  American  Museum  at  New  York 
is  over  sixty  feet  long.  Nothing  so  fires  the  imagi- 
nation as  a  visit  to  the  halls  where  these  ancient 
lizards  now  stand. 

I  am  delighted  that  recent  authorities,  Drs. 
Osborn  and  Lambe,  have  given  Professor  Cope 
credit  for  these  discoveries  of  his  in  1876,  discov- 
eries which  are  made  the  more  memorable  by  the 
fact  that  he  was  the  first  scientist  who  had  the  fore- 
sight and  the  courage  to  explore  these  fossil  beds 
after  Dr.  Hayden,  their  original  discoverer,  was 
driven  out  of  the  region  by  Blackfeet  Indians. 
Indeed,  the  chief  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  put 
forward  the  claim  that  Professor  Cope,  Mr.  Isaac, 


\ 


FIG.  15.— PROFESSOR  E.  D.  COPE. 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        79 

and  myself  made  the  first  real  collection  of  these 
wonderful  saurians. 

After  satisfying  himself  that  there  were  no  skele- 
tons more  or  less  complete  on  Dog  Creek,  Cope  took 
the  guide  and  went  off  down  the  river  to  Cow 
Island,  forty  miles  below.  This  point  was  the  head 
of  navigation  on  the  Missouri  in  October,  the  water 
then  being  so  low  that  the  steamboat  could  not  get 
up  to  Fort  Benton.  The  last  boat  came  up  on  the 
fifteenth  of  October,  to  carry  a  load  of  ore  and  pas- 
sengers down  to  the  railroad  at  Omaha,  and  as  the 
Professor  had  decided  to  take  this  boat,-  it  was  nec- 
essary for  him  to  be  on  hand  when  it  arrived. 

A  few  days  later  he  sent  word  to  us  on  Dog  Creek 
to  break  camp  and  proceed,  according  to  the  scout's 
directions,  to  Cow  Island  with  all  the  outfit.  This 
was  no  easy  task;  in  fact,  at  first  sight  it  appeared 
impossible.  No  wagon  had  ever  before  rolled  down 
those  steep  hillsides.  Mr.  Isaac,  however,  took  com- 
mand, and,  after  removing  everything  from  the 
wagon  except  the  Professor's  trunk,  which  couM 
neither  be  packed  on  a  horse  nor  carried  by  hand, 
we  began  our  journey  up  the  long  twelve  hundred 
feet  to  the  prairies  above. 

Working  with  axes,  picks,  and  shovels,  we  cut 
trees,  bridged  chasms,  and  made  roads,  climbing 
upward  step  by  step,  until  in  the  afternoon  we 
reached  what  for  the  moment  threatened  to  be  the 


80  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

end  of  our  journey.  Before  us  rose  the  sloping 
side  of  a  ridge,  covered  entirely  with  loose  shale, 
and  so  steep  that  it  was  impossible  to  climb  it  even 
on  horseback  without  making  a  long  diagonal  across 
its  flank.  At  the  summit  the  ridge  was  narrow 
enough  to  be  straddled  by  a  wagon,  and  it  sloped 
down  at  the  same  angle  on  the  other  side. 

The  teamster  refused  to  go  any  further,  and  this 
angered  Isaac,  who  said  that  he  would  drive  him- 
self. So  he  unhitched  the  lead  horses,  and  climbing 
the  wagon,  urged  on  the  stupid  mustangs.  One 
walked  in  a  trail  that  we  had  made,  the  other  in  the 
loose  dirt  below. 

I  was  a  good  deal  concerned  as  to  the  fate  of  both 
man  and  team,  but  experience  had  taught  me  the 
folly  of  arguing  with  an  angry  man ;  so  I  sat  on  my 
horse  and  waited  for  the  outcome.  Isaac  had  driven 
about  thirty  feet  above  the  level  floor,  when  the  in- 
evitable happened.  I  saw  the  wagon  slowly  begin 
to  tip,  pulling  the  ponies  over  sideways,  and  then 
the  whole  outfit,  wagon  and  horses,  began  to  roll 
down  the  slope.  Whenever  the  wheels  stuck  up  in 
the  air,  the  ponies  drew  in  their  feet  to  their  bellies, 
and  at  the  next  turn,  stretched  out  their  legs  for 
another  roll. 

My  heart  was  in  my  mouth  for  fear  that  Isaac 
would  be  killed  in  one  of  the  turns,  or  that  wagon 
and  all  would  roll  over  a  thousand-foot  precipice 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        81 

below,  but  after  three  complete  turns,  they  landed, 
the  horses  on  their  feet,  the  wagon  on  its  wheels, 
on  a  level  ledge  of  sandstone,  and  stood  there  as  if 
nothing  had  happened. 

When  I  saw  that  Isaac  was  safe,  I  could  not  help 
laughing,  and  in  consequence  was  told  that  if  I  was 
so  smart  I  could  get  up  the  slope  myself.  I  quickly 
gave  orders  that  the  picket  ropes  be  tied  together 
and  fastened  to  the  hind  axle  of  the  wagon,  and  that 
the  horses  be  led  singly  up  the  trail.  The  rope  was 
then  carried  to  the  top  of  the  ridge,  and  the  horses 
were  hitched  to  it,  and  driven  down  the  steep 
slope  on  the  opposite  side,  thus  drawing  up  the 
wagon.  We  then  righted  it  so  that  it  straddled 
the  ridge  and  could  be  safely  hauled  out  to  the  level 
prairie. 

After  this  we  had  to  go  back  on  horses  and  bring 
the  camp  outfit,  which  we  had  left  at  Dog  Creek,  to 
the  wagon. 

About  three  o'clock  that  afternoon  our  scout,  who 
had  not  showed  up  during  the  heavy  labor  of  getting 
the  outfit  up  to  the  prairie,  was  seen  coming  from 
the  south  through  a  break  in  the  foothills,  while  at 
the  same  time  another  horseman  approached  at  full 
speed  from  the  east.  At  a  sign  from  the  scout,  our 
driver  stopped  his  horses,  and  Isaac  and  I  rested  in 
our  saddles. 

The  second  horseman  soon  proved  to  be  Profes- 


8  2  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

sor  Cope,  who  galloped  up  to  the  guide  and  stopped 
him,  the  gestures  of  the  two  men  and  the  sound  of 
their  raised  voices  indicating  that  an  animated  argu- 
ment was  going  on  between  them.  Finally  the  scout, 
his  face  heated  and  scowling,  came  up  to  the  wagon, 
and  without  a  word,  got  out  his  roll  of  blankets  and 
extra  clothing,  and  started  off  in  the  direction  of 
Fort  Benton. 

The  cook  shouted  after  him,  and  then,  springing 
from  the  wagon,  followed  him.  When  they  were 
out  of  earshot,  the  scout  stopped,  and  the  two  began 
an  excited  conversation.  Then  it  was  the  cook's 
turn  to  show  of  what  poor  stuff  he  was  made,  for, 
coming  back  to  the  wagon,  he  loaded  his  blankets 
and  grip  on  his  broad  shoulders,  and  struck  out  on 
foot  for  a  wood-camp  a  few  miles  to  the  north,  on 
the  river. 

When  Cope  came  up  he  told  us  that  these  two 
men,  whom  he  had  paid  in  full  for  three  months' 
work,  had  deserted  him  here  on  the  open  prairie,  a 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  from  his  base  of  supplies. 

It  seems  that  the  scout  had  come  across  Sitting 
Bull's  war  camp,  where  thousands  of  warriors, 
drunk  with  the  blood  of  Custer  and  the  brave  men 
of  the  Seventh  U.  S.  Cavalry,  were  defying  the 
Government  in  the  inaccessible  canyons  around  the 
Dry  Fork  of  the  Missouri.  The  camp  was  only  a 
day's  journey  from  us,  and  the  scout  and  our  valiant 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        83 

cook  had  concluded  that  their  precious  scalps  were 
too  valuable  to  risk. 

The  Professor  asked  us  whether  we  could  carry 
on  the  double  work  which  their  dishonorable  con- 
duct had  made  necessary,  and  we  willingly  under- 
took to  do  so,  even  if  it  were  to  mean  working  our 
ringers  to  the  bone. 

Isaac  took  the  seat,  and  we  prepared  to  start  on, 
but  misfortunes  never  come  singly.  Our  four-year- 
old  colt,  who  had  had  a  chance  to  rest  during  the 
delay,  suddenly  decided  that  he  too  would  try  to 
put  a  stop  to  the  expedition.  He  balked,  and  when 
the  Professor  went  up  to  him  to  lead  him  along,  he 
struck  out  viciously  with  his  fore  feet. 

Now  I  imagine  that  the  Professor  had  put  up 
with  about  all  that  he  was  willing  to  bear.  The 
cowardly  desertion  of  our  men,  combined  with  the 
discomforts  of  our  situation, — we  had  had  nothing 
to  eat  or  drink  since  we  left  Dog  Creek,  and  the 
only  spring  on  the  route  at  which  we  could  get  good 
water  was  miles  away, — left  little  mercy  in  his" 
heart  for  this  miserable,  obstinate  horse.  He  told 
Isaac  to  unhitch  the  animal  and  tie  him  to  a  hind 
wheel,  while  I  got  on  top  of  the  wagon,  armed  with 
a  club  to  prevent  his  trying  to  climb  in. 

With  the  whip  in  one  hand,  butt  end  down,  Cope 
approached  the  horse  with  the  other  outstretched, 
speaking  gently  to  conciliate  him.  The  horse,  how* 


84  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

ever,  struck  out  with  all  his  might.  Narrowly  escap- 
ing the  blow,  the  Professor  stepped  back,  raised  the 
whip,  and  with  the  butt  end,  hit  the  horse  behind 
the  ear.  The  animal  fell  like  a  flash,  and  lay  for 
some  time  stunned;  but  when  he  struggled  to  his 
feet,  and  the  Professor  approached  him  again  with 
outstretched  hand  and  soft  words,  the  brute  struck 
again.  Again  Cope  knocked  him  down,  and,  al- 
though when  he  rose  to  his  feet,  he  made  another 
feeble  attempt  to  strike,  a  third  knock-down  blow 
was  enough  for  him.  After  that  he  welcomed  the 
Professor's  advances,  accepting  with  every  symptom 
of  pleasure  the  caresses  bestowed  upon  him,  and 
when  untied,  he  almost  dragged  Cope  after  him  in 
his  anxiety  to  get  to  his  traces.  We  had  no  more 
trouble  with  him  until  a  long  rest  and  plenty  of  food 
caused  him  to  forget  his  punishment,  and  made  a 
repetition  of  it  necessary. 

It  was  not  until  late  that  night,  after  fourteen 
hours  of  strenuous  labor,  that  we  were  able  to  eat 
our  supper  of  bacon  and  hardtack,  and  lie  down  for 
a  few  hours'  rest.  We  slung  our  food  from  a  tree 
to  get  it  out  of  the  reach  of  any  grizzlies  which 
might  come  straying  around  in  search  of  bread 
crumbs  or  bacon  rinds.  We  expected  any  moment 
to  be  rolled  out  of  bed  by  some  prowling  paw. 

The  next  day  we  traveled  along  through  the  great 
level  stretches  that  skirt  the  Bad  Lands.  The  prairie 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        85 

was  covered  with  thick  bunches  of  grass,  and 
often  had  been  rooted  up  for  acres  by  grizzlies 
in  search  of  wild  artichokes,  a  sweet  morsel  they 
love.  We  often  saw  herds  of  deer  and  elk  and 
antelope. 

Part  of  the  time  our  route  lay  among  the  foothills 
of  the  Judith  River  Mountains  to  the  south  of  us; 
and  when  we  emerged  again  on  to  the  open  plain,  we 
found  ourselves  in  a  great  amphitheater,  a  hundred 
miles  across.  To  the  west  the  towering  ranges  of 
the  Rockies  rose  in  silent  grandeur,  their  sides 
scarred  deeply  with  canyons,  in  whose  recesses  the 
white  snow  gleamed  and  sparkled  in  the  morning 
light.  To  the  south,  east,  and  north,  the  Judith 
River  Mountains,  the  Little  Rockies,  Medicine  Bow, 
Bearpaw,  and  the  Sweet  Grass  Mountains  on  the 
border  line  of  Assiniboia  made  up  the  circle.  A 
glorious  scene!  And  there  was  exhilaration  too  in 
the  thought  that  ours  was  the  first  wagon  to  roll 
through  these  rich  solitudes,  given  up  for  ages  to 
the  red  hunter  and  his  game.  These  hills  were  soon 
to  re-echo  with  the  shriek  of  the  locomotive,  and 
this  rich  soil  to  nourish  a  thousand  souls,  but  in  the 
days  I  am  recalling,  we  did  not  meet  a  single  human 
being  in  all  the  forty  miles  of  our  journey. 

That  night,  after  another  hard  day,  we  halted  at 
the  head  of  a  short  and  very  steep  ravine  ending  in 
an  open  valley  between  two  ridges,  whose  lofty 


86  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

precipices  abutted  on  the  Missouri  twelve  hundred 
feet  below. 

This  valley,  Cope  told  us,  was  to  be  our  camping 
ground  for  some  time  to  come,  as  a  steamboat  snub- 
bing-post  was  situated  here.  When  I  learned  this, 
I  threw  out  my  roll  of  blankets  and  started  it  on  its 
way  to  camp.  It  bounded  down  the  ravine,  leaping 
high  in  the  air  from  boulder  to  boulder,  and  never 
stopped  until  it  was  caught  in  a  bunch  of  the  cactus 
that  covered  the  level  plain  below. 

Everything  but  the  Professor's  trunk  was  un- 
loaded, and  the  wagon  pulled  to  the  head  of  the 
gulch,  where  Isaac  took  charge  of  the  tongue,  and 
the  Professor  and  I,  each  tying  a  picket  rope  to  the 
hind  axle  and  making  a  half-hitch  to  a  convenient 
sapling,  let  the  wagon  slowly  down  the  hill.  When 
the  rope  was  paid  out,  Isaac  blocked  the  wheels  with 
stones,  and  we  advanced  for  another  hitch,  continu- 
ing in  this  way  until  we  reached  the  bottom.  The 
baggage  was  then  packed  down,  and,  after  a  space 
had  been  cleared  of  cactus,  our  tent  was  pitched. 
It  was  not  until  long  after  midnight  that  we  sat 
down  to  cook  our  meal,  and  when  we  rolled  into  our 
blankets  we  slept  the  sleep  of  utter  exhaustion. 

Not  only  during  this  trip,  but  all  through  our 
stay  in  the  Bad  Lands,  we  were  tormented  by 
myriads  of  black  gnats,  which  got  under  our  hat 
rims  and  shirt  sleeves,  and  produced  sores  that  gave 


i 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        87 

rise  to  pus  and  thick  scabs.  They  got  under  the 
saddles  and  girths  too,  irritating  the  horses  almost 
beyond  endurance.  We  were  forced,  for  lack  of 
something  better,  to  cover  our  faces  and  arms  with 
bacon  grease  and  to  rub  the  skins  of  the  horses 
under  the  collars  and  saddles  with  the  same  disa- 
greeable substance. 

Fossil  bones  always  partake  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  rock  in  which  they  are  entombed,  and  here 
they  were  quite  hard  when  we  got  in  to  where  the 
rock  was  compact.  The  Professor  found  here 
the  first  specimen  ever  discovered  in  America  of 
the  wonderful  horned  dinosaurs;  Monoclonius  he 
called  the  first  species.  I  assisted  him  in  digging 
out  his  specimen  of  M.  crassus,  a  species  distin- 
guished by  a  small  horn  over  each  orbit,  and  a  large 
one  on  the  nasal  bones;  and  I  myself  discovered  two 
species  new  to  science.  One  of  these,  an  M.  spheno- 
cerus,  was  six  or  seven  feet  high  at  the  hips,  and, 
according  to  Cope,  must  have  been  twenty-five  feet 
long,  including  the  tail.  It  has  a  long  compressed 
nasal  horn,  and  two  small  horns  over  the  eyes. 

Professor  Marsh  later  discovered  a  similar  form 
in  these  same  fossil  beds,  and  named  it  Ceratops 
montanus. 

The  species  I  discovered  were  collected  on  the 
north  side  of  the  river,  three  miles  below  Cow 
Island,  after  the  Professor  had  taken  the  last  boat 


88  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

down  the  river.  When  we  uncovered  these  bones 
we  found  them  very  brittle,  as  they  had  been  shat- 
tered by  the  uplift  of  the  strata  in  which  they  were 
buried;  and  we  were  obliged  to  devise  some  means 
of  holding  them  in  place.  The  only  thing  we  had 
in  camp  that  could  be  made  into  a  paste  was  rice, 
which  we  had  brought  along  for  food.  We  boiled 
quantities  of  it  until  it  became  thick,  then,  dipping 
into  it  flour  bags  and  pieces  of  cotton  cloth  and  bur- 
lap, we  used  them  to  strengthen  the  bones  and  hold 
them  together.  This  was  the  beginning  of  a  long 
line  of  experiments,  which  culminated  in  the  re- 
cently adopted  method  of  taking  up  large  fossils  by 
bandaging  them  with  strips  of  cloth  dipped  in  plas- 
ter of  Paris,  like  the  bandages  in  which  a  modern 
surgeon  encases  a  broken  limb. 

I  feel  it  a  great  privilege  to  have  been  one  of  the 
original  discoverers  of  these  great  horned  dinosaurs, 
whose  skeletons  are  now  among  the  chief  glories 
of  our  museums. 

One  day,  about  the  fifteenth  of  October,  Professor 
Cope,  who  had  been  anxiously  awaiting  the  arrival 
of  the  last  steamboat,  concluded  to  ride  out  on  the 
open  prairie  to  some  bad  lands  which  we  had  seen 
on  our  journey  down  from  Dog  Creek.  I  accom- 
panied him.  On  the  way  he  fell  into  one  of  his  fre- 
quent absent-minded  moods,  picturing  the  land  as  it 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        89 

must  have  been  at  the  time  of  the  dinosaurs,  when 
the  shale  of  these  black-sided  canyons  was  mud  on 
an  ocean  floor.  So  fascinated  were  we  both  by  his 
descriptions  that  the  time  flew  by  unheeded,  and  it 
was  afternoon  before  we  reached  the  prairie  south 
of  Cow  Island. 

Upon  arriving  at  the  bit  of  bad  lands,  we  sepa- 
rated, agreeing  to  meet  at  four  o'clock  at  the  place 
where  we  left  the  horses.  I  kept  the  appointment, 
but  the  Professor  was  nowhere  to  be  seen,  and  as 
hour  after  hour  passed  with  no  sign  of  him,  I  began 
to  grow  anxious.  I  knew  the  foolishness  of  trying 
to  find  him  in  that  network  of  gorges  and  ridges, 
and  could  only  wait,  eagerly  watching  the  outlets 
of  the  labyrinth. 

Just  as  the  sun  was  sinking  behind  the  Rockies  he 
came  out  of  a  narrow  ravine  with  the  head  of  a  large 
mountain  sheep  on  his  back.  He  gave  it  to  me  to 
carry  behind  my  saddle,  and  with  few  words  we 
mounted  and  set  off  at  full  speed  for  home,  remem- 
bering the  three  men  whom  we  had  met  on  the 
prairie  at  noon,  who  had  been  lost  for  three  days 
in  the  intricate  passages  of  the  Bad  Lands.  I  did 
not  like  to  think  of  trying  to  find  the  way  there  after 
night. 

The  Professor  dashed  over  the  prairie  without 
once  drawing  rein,  clearing  bunches  of  cactus  ten 
feet,  sometimes,  in  diameter,  at  a  single  bound ;  and 


90  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

I  followed  suit.  So,  by  a  series  of  leaps,  we  crossed 
the  ten-mile  stretch  and  drew  up  at  the  head  of  a 
gorge,  from  which  we  could  see  Cow  Island. 

Cope  eagerly  scanned  the  lights  of  the  little  sta- 
tion, and  finally  decided  that  a  new  set  had  been 
added  to  those  of  the  soldiers'  tents.  He  was  sure 
that  the  long-expected  steamer  lay  at  her  snubbing- 
post,  and  declared  emphatically  that  we  must  reach 
Cow  Island  that  night. 

I  knew  the  uselessness  of  trying  to  combat  his 
iron  will,  but  I  pleaded  with  him  against  the  folly 
of  attempting  to  thread  in  the  darkness  those  black 
and  treacherous  defiles,  where  a  single  misstep 
meant  certain  death.  I  begged  him  to  wait  until 
daylight.  We  were,  to  be  sure,  hungry  and  thirsty, 
and  food,  water,  and  shelter  were  to  be  had  only  at 
the  river,  but  sleeping  in  our  saddle  blankets  with- 
out supper  was,  I  urged,  preferable  to  running  the 
risk  of  being  dashed  to  pieces. 

He  paid  no  attention  to  what  I  said,  but  dismount- 
ing, led  his  horse  into  the  canyon.  He  had  to  cut  a 
stick  to  shove  in  front  of  him,  as  his  eyes  could  not 
penetrate  the  darkness  a  single  inch  ahead.  I  cut 
another  to  punch  along  his  horse,  which  did  not 
want  to  follow  him. 

Sometimes  when  we  had  climbed  down  several 
hundred  feet,  the  end  of  the  Professor's  stick  would 
encounter  only  air,  and  a  handful  of  stones  thrown 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        91 

ahead  would  be  heard  to  strike  the  earth  far  below. 
Then  we  had  to  turn  and  climb  back  through  the 
deep  dust  to  the  top,  and  circling  a  canyon,  plunge 
down  on  the  other  side. 

Once  we  got  down  to  the  river  four  miles  from 
the  prairie,  and  thought  that  our  journey  was  over, 
as  we  could  see  the  lights  of  the  station  just  across 
the  river.  But  when  we  had  watered  our  thirsty 
horses  and  started  down  for  the  landing,  we  found 
our  way  blocked  by  a  huge  ridge  with  a  towering 
precipice  impinging  on  the  river;  and  we  had  to 
drag  ourselves  back  over  those  four  long,  hard 
miles  to  the  prairie,  and  start  again.  I  freely  con- 
fess that  I  should  have  been  willing  to  lie  down  in 
the  dust  just  where  I  was,  and  let  the  horses  look 
out  for  themselves,  but  Cope's  indomitable  will 
could  not  be  conquered.  Back  we  climbed  to  the 
top,  and  down  we  went  into  the  next  ravine. 

I  have  never  known  another  man  who  would  have 
attempted  this  journey.  It  was  both  foolhardy  and 
useless,  but  we  could  say  that  we  accomplished  what 
no  one  else  ever  had  in  reaching  Cow  Island  through 
the  Bad  Lands  after  dark. 

For  we  did  reach  it.  Just  before  daylight  we  got 
down  to  the  landing  across  from  the  station,  and 
sure  enough,  the  steamboat  was  at  her  post.  But 
another  disappointment  was  in  store  for  us.  The 
Professor  shouted  to  the  sergeant  to  come  and  take 


92  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

us  over,  but  his  voice  was  not  recognized,  and  as 
the  sergeant  was  afraid  that  the  call  might  come 
from  some  Indian  who  had  prepared  an  ambush,  he 
refused  to  respond.  We  were  soaked  with  perspira- 
tion, and  rapidly  becoming  chilled  by  a  cold  fog  that 
was  rising  along  the  shore,  and  we  were  obliged  to 
walk  back  and  forth  to  keep  warm  until  the  Profes- 
sor had  recovered  his  natural  voice. 

Then,  in  his  haste  to  correct  his  error,  the  ser- 
geant sent  a  boat  across  in  the  wrong  place,  and  it 
was  turned  over  in  the  rapids.  He  had  to  rescue  the 
half-drowned  men,  capture  the  boat,  and  try  again. 

At  last,  however,  we  were  warming  ourselves  in 
a  tent,  where  a  pot  of  beans  was  simmering  for  the 
soldiers'  breakfast.  Not  a  bean  was  left  when  we 
got  through  with  them,  and  three  pounds  of  rasp- 
berry jam,  spread  upon,  I  was  going  to  say  a  box  of, 
hardtack,  followed  the  beans.  Then  the  sergeant 
took  us  both  out  into  the  open  air  and  turned  back 
the  big  black  tarpaulin  covering  the  gold  ore  that 
was  to  be  shipped  to  the  smelter  at  Omaha.  He 
made  us  a  warm  nest  of  new  blankets,  and  when  we 
had  crawled  into  it,  pulled  the  tarpaulin  back  into 
place.  Did  we  sleep?  Ask  the  deckhands  who  let 
the  sunlight  in  upon  us  about  nine  o'clock  the  next 
morning,  when  they  pulled  away  the  tarpaulin  to 
load  the  ore. 

Cope  at  once  sought  the  captain  of  the  boat  and 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        93 

said,  "  I  am  Professor  Cope,  of  Philadelphia.  I 
have  a  four-horse  wagon  at  a  steamboat  snubbing- 
post  three  miles  below.  I  would  like  you  to  stop 
there  on  your  way  down,  and  carry  my  outfit  across 
to  this  side.  My  baggage  and  freight  are  also 
there,  and  I  want  to  take  passage  for  Omaha.'5 

"  Well,  sir,"  the  man  answered,  "  I  am  the  cap- 
tain of  this  boat.  If  you  want  to  go  down  the  river, 
you  must  have  your  baggage,  freight,  and  self  at 
this  landing  before  ten  o'clock  to-morrow  morning, 
when  I  leave  for  down-river  points." 

The  Professor  did  not  argue  the  question  further. 
He  tried  to  get  the  loan  of  an  old  sand-scow,  but 
the  man  who  owned  it  had  heard  this  conversation 
with  the  captain,  and  refused  to  lend  it.  The  Pro- 
fessor was  obliged  to  purchase  it  for  an  enormous 
price,  and  the  next  day  left  it  where  he  got  it.  We 
boarded  this  scow,  and  leaving  our  ponies  picketed 
across  the  river,  paddled  down  to  camp,  where,  to 
our  disgust,  we  found  that  Mr.  Isaac  had  gone  out 
into  the  Bad  Lands  to  look  for  us.  There  was  no 
time  to  lose;  so,  although  stiff  and  sore  from  our 
night's  exertions,  we  plunged  into  the  work  of  low- 
ering the  tent,  packing  our  stores  and  fossils  into 
the  wagon,  and  dragging  everything  aboard  the 
scow.  We  were  ready  to  start  when  Mr.  Isaac 
appeared. 

We   crossed  the  river,   swimming  our  horses; 


94  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

and  then  came  the  time  for  old  Major  to  go  it  alone 
and  show  his  worth.  We  converted  the  Missouri 
into  a  canal,  and  its  northern  bank  into  a  towpath. 
Old  Major  we  hitched  to  a  line  attached  to  the 
scow;  and  while  a  couple  of  mountain  men  whom 
we  had  in  camp  kept  the  boat  away  from  the  shore 
with  long  poles,  I  rode  the  big  horse,  often  right 
into  the  river,  until  he  began  to  sink  in  a  mud  bank, 
and  I  had  to  turn  hastily  back  to  shore.  The  Pro- 
fessor and  Mr.  Isaac  had  the  worst  places,  for  they 
had  to  keep  the  rope  from  being  caught  by  a  snag 
or  rock;  and  when  it  did  catch,  if  they  did  not  in- 
stantly loose  their  hold  upon  it,  the  tension  threw 
them  far  over  into  the  river,  and  they  had  to  get  out 
as  best  they  could,  This  occurred  a  number  of  times- 

When  about  sundown  we  hove-to  under  the  big 
steamer,  the  deck  was  crowded  with  passengers 
watching  our  approach.  Cope  was  covered  with 
mud  from  head  to  foot,  and  his  clothing,  with 
hardly  a  seam  whole,  hung  from  him  in  wet,  dirty 
rags.  He  had  forgotten  to  bring  along  any  winter 
wearing  apparel,  so,  although  the  nights  were  quite 
cold,  and  the  women  were  clad  in  fur  coats  and  the 
men  in  ulsters,  he  emerged  from  the  sergeant's  tent, 
whither  he  had  carried  his  grip,  in  a  summer  suit 
and  linen  duster. 

He  told  me  about  a  funny  experience  that  he  had 
on  the  boat  on  the  way  down  the  river.  It  goes 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        95 

without  saying  that  in  that  long  trip  he  taught  the 
passengers  more  natural  science  than  they  had  ever 
learned  in  all  their  lives  before.  At  a  certain  wood- 
camp,  he  and  some  others  went  ashore  and  found 
the  skull  of  a  Crow  Indian.  The  Crow  method  of 
burial  was  to  wrap  the  body  in  a  blanket,  lay  it  on 
the  ground,  and  build  around  it  an  open  frame  of 
logs,  to  keep  away  wild  animals.  It  was  an  easy 
matter  to  pick  up  a  skull. 

The  Professor  carried  his  find  aboard  in  his  hands 
before  everyone,  and  was  beginning  to  tell  his  en- 
lightened listeners  the  special  cranial  characteristics 
of  this  tribe,  when  a  body  of  deckhands,  headed  by 
their  appointed  speaker,  came  forward  and  told  the 
captain  that  they  would  not  allow  Professor  Cope  to 
"  emulate  the  dead."  He  must  take  the  skull  back 
to  its  grave  or  they  would  not  remain  aboard  and 
take  the  boat  down  to  Omaha. 

"  Why,"  said  the  speaker  earnestly,  "  we  will  be 
caught  on  every  mud  bank  in  the  river,  and  there  is 
no  telling  what  calamities  will  happen,  if  he  is  al- 
lowed to  emulate  the  dead." 

There  was  no  getting  them  to  back  down  from 
their  position,  and  the  Crow's  skull  was  restored  to 
its  grave.  But  the  Professor  said  afterwards,  "  We 
had  about  a  dozen  skulls  packed  in  with  the  fossils, 
and  in  spite  of  them,  reached  Omaha  without  having 
to  walk  on  stilts,  as  had  been  prophesied." 


96  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Shortly  after  the  Professor  left  us,  I  discovered 
a  fine  specimen,  one  of  those  mentioned  earlier  in 
this  chapter,  three  miles  below  Cow  Island,  near  the 
base  of  a  high  tableland,  where  I  kept  my  pony 
picketed  while  I  worked.  One  day,  when  I  prepared 
to  mount  him,  I  noticed  that  he  was  unusually  quiet. 
His  custom  was  to  start  on  a  run  as  soon  as  my 
foot  touched  the  stirrup,  leaving  me  to  get  into  the 
saddle  as  best  I  could.  This  time  he  stood  still,  and 
when  I  reached  my  seat  and  lifted  the  lines,  I  found 
that  they  were  perfectly  useless,  as  the  curb  was 
broken. 

Before  I  could  dismount,  the  brute  started  at  a 
rapid  pace  across  the  tableland  toward  a  sheer  preci- 
pice, hundreds  of  feet  high.  I  settled  myself  firmly 
in  the  saddle  and  hung  on  with  both  hands  to  the 
hand-holds  behind,  fearing  that  he  might  try  to 
hurl  me  over ;  and  that  was  just  what  he  did.  When 
he  got  within  a  few  inches  of  the  brink,  he  planted 
his  feet  and  stopped  suddenly.  But  Providence  and 
long  practice  in  riding  all  kinds  of  horses  enabled 
me  to  keep  my  seat,  and  fortunately,  the  saddle 
girths  held. 

I  was  just  about  to  dismount,  when  suddenly  the 
determined  animal  whirled  around  and  started  for 
the  precipice  on  the  other  side,  where  he  went 
through  the  same  performance.  And  not  satisfied 
even  then,  tried  the  trick  a  third  time.  Then  he  al- 


Expedition  to  the  Bad  Lands        97 

lowed  me  to  dismount  and  mend  the  curb.  In  pay- 
ment for  his  treachery,  I  forced  him  to  run  at  full 
speed  down  the  steep  and  rugged  trail  to  camp. 

This  chapter  has  been  largely  taken  up  with  ad- 
ventures and  a  study  of  the  man  Cope;  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  there  was  little  else  to  tell  about,  as 
we  were  in  such  haste  that  we  secured  few  speci- 
mens, and  the  most  important  result  of  the  expedi- 
tion was  our  discovery  of  many  new  specimens  of 
dinosaurs,  represented  chiefly  by  teeth. 

On  the  first  of  November  a  heavy  snowstorm  set 
in,  promising  to  leave  the  country  covered  with 
snow  for  the  winter ;  so  we  loaded  our  outfit  and 
started  for  Fort  Benton.  The  sergeant  went  with 
us,  very  fortunately,  as  it  proved;  for  one  night, 
as  we  were  camping  in  the  Bear  Paw  Mountains, 
one  of  our  crazy  mustang  wheelers  heard  a  wolf 
howl  and  started  on  a  run  for  one  of  the  other 
horses  which  was  picketed  farther  down  the  slope. 
Coming  suddenly  to  the  end  of  its  rope,  its  feet 
slipped,  and  it  fell  and  broke  its  neck.  But  for  the 
sergeant's  horse  we  could  not  have  hauled  in  our 
load. 

Countless  herds  of  buffalo  were  being  driven  to 
the  Bad  Lands  by  the  storm,  as  were  also  great 
droves  of  deer,  elk,  and  antelope.  It  seemed  as  if 
it  would  be  impossible  to  exterminate  them.  Yet 
I  learned  by  the  papers  the  other  day  that  the  last 


98  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

herd  of  buffalo  of  any  size  had  been  sold  at  three 
hundred  dollars  a  head  to  the  Canadian  Government, 
Uncle  Sam  being  too  poor  to  make  the  purchase. 

We  reached  Fort  Benton  in  safety,  learning  later 
that  Sitting  Bull  had  crossed  at  Cow  Island  and 
killed  the  soldiers  who  had  been  left  there.  I  never 
saw  my  associate,  Mr.  Isaac,  again,  but  I  know 
that  he  discovered  some  fine  material  the  next  year. 

I  made  the  return  stage  journey  of  six  hundred 
miles  in  six  days.  Through  the  mountains  the 
thermometer  averaged  twenty  below  zero,  and  I  ate 
four  hearty  meals  a  day.  I  recrossed  the  Great 
Divide  on  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  made  a  brief 
visit  home,  and  went  on  to  spend  the  winter  with 
Professor  Cope. 


CHAPTER  IV 

FURTHER  WORK  IN  THE  KANSAS 
CHALK,    1877 

SPENT  the  winter  of  1876-77  with  Pro- 
fessor Cope,  first  at  Haddonfield,  then 
at  his  new  home  on  Pine  Street,  in  Phil- 
adelphia. 

At  Haddonfield  the  commodious  loft  of  a  large, 
old-fashioned  barn  was  fitted  up  as  a  workshop,  and 
I  had  also  a  bed  here.  I  boarded  with  a  Mr.  Geis- 
mar,  Professor  Cope's  preparator,  but  I  had  a  stand- 
ing invitation  to  eat  dinner  every  Sunday  with  the 
Professor  and  his  wife  and  daughter,  a  lovely  child 
of  twelve  summers. 

I  shall  never  forget  those  Sunday  dinners.  The 
food  was  plain,  but  daintily  cooked,  and  the  Pro- 
fessor's conversation  was  a  feast  in  itself.  He  had 
a  wonderful  power  of  putting  professional  matters 
from  his  mind  when  he  left  his  study,  and  coming 
out  ready  to  enter  into  any  kind  of  merrymaking. 
He  used  to  sit  with  sparkling  eyes,  telling  story  after 
story,  while  we  laughed  at  his  sallies  until  we  could 
laugh  no  more. 

99 


ioo          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

I  never  knew  his  wit  to  fail  him.  I  remember 
being  present  at  a  meeting  of  the  Academy  of 
Science,  in  Philadelphia,  at  which  he  was  up  for 
re-election  to  the  office  of  recording  secretary,  and 
was  defeated.  Among  others,  Professor  William 
Moore  Gabb  made  some  remarks  against  him. 
Cope's  only  defense  was  "  Now,  William,  more 
gab!" 

I  attended  also  the  dinners  which  he  gave  to  his 
hosts  of  friends  in  the  city,  and  the  luncheons  at 
which  Mrs.  Cope  entertained  the  young  men  to 
whom  the  Professor  gave  lectures  in  his  own  home. 
He  told  his  funniest  anecdotes  on  these  occasions, 
and  used  to  call  on  me  for  my  story  of  the  old 
farmer  who,  while  at  work  hoeing  corn  in  a  stump- 
field  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  saw  a  hoop-snake  at  the 
top  take  its  tail  in  its  mouth  and  begin  to  roll  down 
towards  him.  Springing  behind  a  stump,  he  struck 
at  it  with  his  hoe  handle,  into  which  the  sting  at 
the  end  of  the  snake's  tail  entered  deeply.  In  less 
than  an  hour  the  handle  had  swelled  up  to  the  size 
of  a  man's  leg. 

I  believe  that  this  story-telling  of  which  he  was 
so  fond  was  for  Cope  a  form  of  relaxation  from  his 
heavy  work  in  the  study,  and  that  his  ability  to  give 
himself  up  so  thoroughly  to  it  in  his  leisure  hours 
was  what  enabled  him  to  accomplish  in  his  life  an 
amount  of  work  such  as  few  men  have  ever  accom- 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     101 

plished.  It  would  take  a  volume  even  to  name  the 
titles  of  all  the  products  of  his  industrious  brain. 
One  of  them  alone,  the  great  Volume  III  of  the 
"  Tertiary  Vertebrata,"  often  called  "  Cope's  Bible," 
has  over  a  thousand  pages  of  text,  beside  many  fine 
plates.  It  was  published  by  the  Government,  in 
1884. 

Before  starting  back  to  outfit  another  expedition 
to  the  Kansas  Chalk,  I  secured  the  services  of  Mr. 
Russell  T.  Hill,  an  able  young  man  who  was  work- 
ing in  the  Academy  under  the  Jesup  Fund;  and 
upon  our  arrival  at  Manhattan,  I  hired  Mr.  A.  W. 
Brouse  as  teamster  and  cook. 

About  the  last  of  March  we  started  with  a  team 
of  ponies  and  a  light  spring  wagon  upon  our  long 
and  extremely  tedious  journey  across  the  state  of 
Kansas,  to  our  headquarters  at  Buffalo  Park.  At 
Chapman  Creek,  a  few  miles  from  Junction  City, 
we  were  stopped  by  high  water.  A  raging  torrent 
twenty  feet  deep  filled  the  bed  of  the  creek ;  neither 
man  nor  beast  could  have  crossed  it  alive.  We 
were,  therefore,  horrified  to  see  a  farmer,  sitting  on 
a  seat  on  top  of  two  sets  of  side-boards  in  a  lumber 
wagon,  come  driving  down  into  this  fearful  flood. 
I  called  to  him  to  stop,  and  asked  him  what  he  was 
going  to  do. 

"  I  must  come  over,"  he  shouted. 

"  Why,"  I  answered,  "  the  water  is  twenty  feet 


102  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

deep,  and  running  like  a  mill  race.  You'll  be  swept 
away." 

"  But  I  have  not  had  my  mail  for  a  week.  I  must 
come  over,"  he  shouted  back. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  you  big  fool,  why  don't  you  go' 
down  to  the  railroad  bridge,  just  below  here,  and 
walk  over  ?  " 

"  By  Chimmeny,"  he  said,  "  I  hadn't  thought  of 
that!" 

As  we  were  now  in  the  antelope  country,  we  were 
rarely  out  of  antelope  meat.  One  morning  we  saw 
a  buck  antelope  standing  close  to  the  railroad  track, 
watching  an  incoming  train.  I  remarked,  as  I 
urged  the  driver  to  hurry  up  his  horses,  that  per- 
haps someone  would  shoot  the  animal  from  the 
train.  And  sure  enough,  as  the  train  passed,  a  win- 
dow flew  up,  and  a  man  with  a  revolver  shot  the 
buck  through  the  neck.  It  began  to  describe  a  circle, 
its  feet  planted  together,  and  springing  from  the 
wagon,  I  cut  its  throat  with  a  butcher  knife,  while 
the  boys  held  its  horns. 

Another  time,  as  we  were  traveling  along  over 
the  prairie,  we  suddenly  came  upon  a  young  ante- 
lope hidden  securely  in  the  center  of  a  bunch  of 
grass.  We  should  not  have  seen  him  at  all  from  the 
ground,  but  being  above  him  on  the  wagon  seat, 
we  looked  right  down  on  him.  The  boys  jumped 
out,  and  approaching  the  little  chap  carefully,  were 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     103 

just  spreading  out  their  arms  so  as  to  be  ready  to 
grab  him,  when  he  sprang  to  his  feet  so  quickly  that 
their  hands  were  thrown  into  the  air,  and  darted 
off.  The  boys  started  after  him  at  the  top  of  their 
speed,  but  they  might  as  well  have  tried  to  catch 
a  streak  of  lightning. 

One  day  we  were  camping  at  the  spring  on  Hack- 
berry,  south  of  Buffalo,  when  a  couple  of  men  rode 
up  to  us.  They  said  that  they  were  cowmen,  and 
that  they  had  lost  their  outfit.  I  invited  them  into 
my  tent,  and  after  supper  gave  them  the  boys'  bed, 
the  boys  themselves  climbing  into  the  covered 
wagon. 

Early  in  the  morning  one  of  the  men  wakened 
me  and  asked  for  a  revolver.  There  was  an  ante- 
lope in  camp,  he  said.  I  handed  him  a  Smith  and 
Wesson,  and  peeped  out,  to  see  a  fine  buck  standing 
just  at  the  end  of  the  wagon  tongue,  looking  over 
the  tent  and  wagon.  The  stranger  opened  fire  at 
three  or  four  paces  and  emptied  the  revolver.  Then 
throwing  it  down  as  of  no  account,  he  asked  for  a 
gun.  I  gave  him  a  Sharp's  rifle  and  a  cartridge  belt. 
In  the  meanwhile  the  antelope  had  walked  a  few 
yards  away  and  turned  to  look  at  us.  The  man 
fired  several  shots,  and  threw  down  the  rifle  also, 
and  as  the  boys  were  by  this  time  climbing  out  of 
the  wagon,  one  with  a  Winchester,  the  other  with 
a  little  Ballard,  he  borrowed  from  them  first  one 


104          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

firearm  and  then  the  other,  and  blazed  away  without 
once  drawing  blood.  Finally  the  buck  deliberately 
moved  over  the  hill  and  out  of  sight,  while  the  man 
swore  that  it  had  a  charmed  life.  We  thought  oth- 
erwise, however,  and  the  boys  followed  it;  soon  re- 
turning with  it  swinging  from  a  gun,  which  they 
carried  on  their  shoulders  like  a  pole. 

I  recall  another  ludicrous  incident  connected  with 
this  expedition.  We  happened  to  be  at  Buffalo  Sta- 
tion once  when  Professor  Snow,  the  much-loved 
Kansas  naturalist,  and  at  one  time  the  chancellor  of 
the  State  University,  was  in  town  with  a  large  party 
of  students,  on  his  annual  insect  hunt. 

The  old  Chisholm  cattle  trail  led  through  Buffalo, 
and  one  day  the  owner  of  a  large  herd  of  Texas 
cattle,  who  was  passing  through,  noticed  Professor 
Snow  and  his  party  out  on  the  prairie  with  their 
nets  in  their  hands,  running  about  as  if  possessed. 
It  happened  to  be  the  first  time  that  he  had  ever 
seen  insect  collectors  at  work,  and  his  curiosity  was 
aroused. 

"What  are  those  men  doing?"  he  asked  Jim 
Thompson,  the  storekeeper. 

"  Catching  bugs,"  was  the  laconic  reply. 

"  I  don't  believe  it,"  said  the  cowman.  "  They 
are  grown  men." 

"  All  right,"  said  Jim,  "  you  can  find  out  for 
yourself  if  you  want  to." 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     105 

The  man  started  off  after  the  Professor,  and  I 
waited,  with  a  good  deal  of  curiosity,  to  hear  his 
report  of  the  conversation.  On  his  return  he  was  in 
a  brown  study.  The  Professor  had  taken  him  into 
his  tent,  and  shown  him  hundreds  of  mounted  in- 
sects, reeling  off  their  names  to  him  until  his  head 
whirled. 

"  Well,  did  I  tell  you  the  truth?  "  Jim  asked. 

"  That  man,"  said  the  cowman,  "  is  the  smartest 
man  I  ever  saw.  He  knows  the  names  and  surnames 
of  all  the  bugs  in  this  country." 

On  the  thirtieth  of  April  we  drove  down  to  the 
Smoky,  thirty  miles  south  of  Buffalo,  and  got 
caught  in  a  quicksand,  but  managed  to  save  both 
team  and  wagon.  We  camped  at  the  mouth  of  a 
large  ravine  with  plenty  of  grass  in  it. 

All  that  night  it  blew  a  perfect  gale.  Did  you, 
dear  reader,  ever  try  to  sleep  in  a  tent  when  the 
wind  was  high  and  the  canvas  flapped  about  you, 
waking  the  fear  that  at  any  moment  the  pegs  might 
pull  out  or  a  seam  part  ?  Do  you  know  what  it  is  to 
lie,  deafened  by  thunder  and  blinded  by  lightning, 
while  the  rain  and  sleet  dash  against  the  thin  cov- 
ering which  is  all  that  separates  you  from  the  fury 
of  the  storm?  It  is  not  a  pleasant  experience,  and 
yet  in  all  the  years  that  I  have  gone  camping,  al- 
though I  have  expected  time  and  again  to  find  my 
tent  torn  to  shreds  over  my  head,  my  fears  have 


io6  Life  of  a  Fossil   Hunter 

never  once  been  realized.  Even  in  the  most  terrible 
storms  my  tent  has  stood  securely,  and  I  have  es- 
caped without  serious  inconvenience. 

On  this  trip,  however,  we  did  have  a  disagreeable 
experience.  A  cold  rain  continued  for  four  days, 
and  the  tent  sprang  a  leak  right  over  my  bed.  More- 
over, the  buffalo  chips  were  so  wet  that  we  could 
not  build  a  fire,  and  had  to  eat  cold  food  and  sleep 
in  wet  blankets. 

Among  the  difficulties  with  which  we  had  to  con- 
tend on  this  expedition  was  a  defective  wagon 
wheel.  One  day,  as  we  were  driving  along  a  slope, 
our  lower  wheel  dished  out,  and  dumped  us,  load 
and  all,  to  the  ground.  Upon  examination,  we 
found  that  the  maker  had  used  a  hub  whose  mortises 
were  too  large  for  the  spokes.  The  latter  had  been 
held  in  place  by  wedges  which  had  been  painted  over 
so  that  they  should  not  be  detected.  The  man  who 
sold  us  the  wagon  had  guaranteed  it  for  a  year,  but 
unfortunately,  he  lived  two  hundred  miles  away. 
When  the  necessity  arises,  however,  one  can  solve 
any  problem  somehow;  so  we  took  off  the  tire,  put 
back  the  spokes  and  wedges,  heated  the  tire  in  a  fire 
of  buffalo  chips,  and  reset  it.  We  tried  to  drive 
carefully  after  this  and  avoid  sloping  places,  but  it 
generally  happened  that  when  we  least  expected  it, 
we  would  fall  by  the  wayside.  Most  aggravating 
of  all,  when  we  did  take  the  defective  wheel  back 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     107 

to  the  man  who  guaranteed  it,  he  gave  us  another 
even  more  unreliable  than  the  first.  It  is  a  mystery 
to  me  how  manufacturers  can  play  such  miserable 
tricks  on  their  customers. 

We  were  much  inconvenienced  also  by  the  ill- 
ness of  one  of  our  horses.  He  often  gave  out  on 
the  open  prairie,  in  one  case,  I  remember,  three 
miles  from  water.  The  only  vessel  we  had  in  which 
to  bring  it  to  camp  was  a  gallon  jug,  and  it  kept  one 
person  busy  getting  enough  for  our  use.  We  were 
finally  obliged  to  get  another  horse  in  place  of  the 
sick  one;  and  our  bad  luck  persisting,  hit  upon  one 
which  had  evidently  been  trained  to  the  wheel 
of  a  coach,  for  as  soon  as  the  last  trace  had  been 
hitched,  he  was  off  like  a  shot.  Fortunately,  his 
mate  could  not  run  as  fast,  so  that  they  simply 
went  round  in  a  circle,  and  the  boys,  watching 
their  chance,  caught  hold  of  the  wagon  and  got 
aboard. 

This  horse  was  continually  giving  us  trouble. 
One  day  when  we  were  about  to  cross  Hackberry 
Creek  I  went  ahead  with  my  pick  and  struck  the 
dry,  cracked  clay  of  the  bed,  to  see  whether  it  would 
hold.  As  I  could  not  break  through,  I  concluded 
that  we  could  cross  safely,  and  beckoned  to  Will 
Brouse  to  come  on.  Whereupon  that  miserable  mus- 
tang, taking  his  bit  between  his  teeth,  came  down 
the  hill  with  the  load  at  full  speed,  and,  dashing 


io8          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

onto  the  hardened  clay,  broke  through  into  the 
thick  mortar  below. 

The  boys,  jumping  out,  managed  to  get  both 
horses  unhitched  before  they  went  down,  and 
quickly  hitched  them  to  the  hind  axle  of  the  wagon, 
to  save  the  load  of  fossils  which  we  were  hauling 
to  the  station.  Then  began  a  performance  of  that 
tantalizing  trick  which  horses  know  so  well  how  to 
play.  Rowdy  would  make  a  rush  forward,  as  if 
he  intended  to  haul  out  the  load  in  a  hurry,  but  the 
moment  he  felt  the  collar  press  his  neck,  he  would 
fall  back  against  the  wheel,  while  his  mate  went 
through  the  same  performance.  So  they  see-sawed 
up  and  down,  until  I  could  stand  it  no  longer,  as  the 
wagon  was  slowly  sinking.  I  took  the  lines,  and 
putting  all  my  will-power  into  the  command  "  Get 
out  of  this ! "  I  forced  them  to  pull  together  and 
haul  the  wagon  out  to  solid  ground.  Then  when 
we  unhitched  them,  they  ran  away  and  scattered 
singletrees,  nuts,  and  bolts  all  over  the  prairie. 

South  of  the  river  we  found  some  fine  examples 
of  large  Haploscapha  shells,  some  of  them  a  foot 
in  diameter.  The  valves  of  this  shell  are  shaped  a 
little  like  a  woman's  bonnet,  and  the  name  Conrad 
gave  it,  "Haploscapha  grandis,"  may  be  freely 
translated  "The  great  hood."  (Fig.  17.) 

We  found  many  fish  and  saurian s  or  mosasaurs 
also.  Very  different  was  our  method  of  collecting 


m 


0^ 


FIG.   17. — FOSSIL  SHELLS,  Haploscapha  grandis. 
(After  Cope.) 


FIG.   18. — CHARLES  STERNBEKG  AND  SON  TAKING  UP  A  LARGE  SLAB  OF  FOSSILS 

FROM   A   CHALK   BED    IN    GOVE    Co.,    KANSAS. 


FIG.  19. — CAMP  AND  WAGON  OF  THE  FOSSIL  HUNTERS  ON  GRASSWOOD  CREEK, 
CONVERSE  Co.,  WYOMING. 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     109 

them  then  from  what  it  is  now,  for  fossil  hunting  is 
as  capable  of  improvement  as  any  other  form  of 
human  endeavor.  Then  we  went  over,  in  a  few 
months,  all  the  chalk  in  western  Kansas,  which  lines 
the  ravines  on  either  side  of  the  Smoky  Hill  and  its 
branches  for  a  hundred  miles;  now  it  takes  us  five 
years  to  get  over  the  same  ground.  Then  we  dug 
up  the  bones  with  a  butcher  knife  or  pick,  and 
packed  in  flour  sacks  with  dry  buffalo  grass,  which 
we  pulled  with  our  fingers.  Some  strange  animals 
were  created  by  Cope  and  Marsh  in  those  early  days, 
when  they  attempted  to  restore  a  creature  from  the 
few  disconnected  bones  thus  carelessly  collected. 
Now  we  take  up  great  slabs  of  the  chalk,  so  that  we 
can  show  the  bones  in  situ,  that  is,  in  their  original 
matrix,  so  that  they  may  be  the  more  easily  fitted 
together  in  their  natural  relations  with  each  other. 
When,  after  much  careful  exploration,  we  find, 
sticking  out  of  the  edge  of  a  canyon  or  wash,  the 
bones  of  some  "  ancient  mariner  "  of  the  old  Cre- 
taceous ocean,  we  first  lay  bare  a  floor  above  the  bones 
by  picking  away  the  rock.  Then  I,  usually  stretched 
at  full  length  on  this  floor,  with  a  crooked  awl  and 
a  brush,  uncover  the  bones  enough  to  be  able  to 
determine  how  they  lie,  often  keeping  up  the  tedious 
work  for  hours.  When  the  position  of  each  bone 
has  been  ascertained,  my  son  George,  who  for  years 
has  been  my  chief  assistant,  and  I  cut  trenches 


1 1  o  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

around  the  specimen,  and,  hewing  down  the  outside 
rock  two  or  three  inches,  make  a  frame  of  2  x  4  lum- 
ber, cover  the  bones  with  oiled  paper,  and  fill  the 
frame  with  plaster.  As  the  fossil  rarely  lies  level, 
it  is  necessary  to  have  the  cover  ready  to  nail  on, 
a  board  at  a  time,  while  the  plaster  is  being  poured 
in.  This  results  in  a  panel  of  even  thickness,  with 
every  bone  in  or  near  its  original  position,  or  at  least 
in  the  position  in  which  it  was  buried. 

After  the  plaster  has  hardened  comes  the  difficult 
labor  of  digging  the  rock  away  from  underneath. 
One  has  to  lie  on  one's  left  side  and  work  with  a 
light  pick,  using  great  care,  so  as  to  cut  away  the 
rock  just  enough  to  allow  the  frame  to  come  down 
by  its  own  weight.  If  force  is  used  very  likely  the 
rock,  with  its  enclosed  fossil,  will  be  torn  from  the 
frame,  and  the  specimen  ruined.  Afterwards  the 
rock  is  leveled  off  even  with  the  frame,  and  the  bot- 
tom nailed  on.  The  case  is  then  placed  in  a  larger 
box  with  excelsior  carefully  packed  around  it. 

The  illustration  (Fig.  18)  shows  a  huge  panel  in 
process  of  being  cut  out.  George  and  I  spent  two 
weeks  of  heavy  labor  upon  another.  Luckily,  it  was 
preserved  in  chalk  hard  enough  to  allow  of  its  being 
lifted  without  breaking.  The  slab  was  about  four 
inches  thick,  and  weighed  at  least  six  hundred 
pounds,  yet  he  and  I  handled  it  entirely  alone,  get- 
ting it  boxed  and  into  the  wagon  ourselves. 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     1 1 1 

My  old  friend,  Dr.  S.  W.  Williston,  who  in  the 
seventies  was  in  charge  of  collecting  parties  for  Pro- 
fessor Marsh,  and  is  now  a  noted  authority  in 
paleontology  and  professor  of  that  science  in  the 
University  of  Chicago,  describes  this  specimen  in 
his  great  work  on  North  American  plesiosaurs,  a 
Field  Columbian  Museum  publication.  He  says: 
"  The  specimen  of  Dolichorhynchops  osborni,  here- 
with described  and  illustrated  [Fig.  20],  was  dis- 
covered by  Mr.  George  Sternberg,  in  the  summer 
of  1900,  and  skilfully  collected  by  his  father,  the 
veteran  collector  of  fossil  vertebrates.  The  speci- 
men was  purchased  of  Mr.  Sternberg  in  the  follow- 
ing spring  for  the  University  of  Kansas,  where  it 
has  been  mounted  and  now  is.  When  received  at 
the  museum,  the  skeleton  was  almost  wholly  con- 
tained in  a  large  slab  of  soft,  yellow  chalk,  with 
all  its  bones  disassociated,  and  more  or  less  en- 
tangled together.  The  left  ischium,  lying  by  the 
side  of  the  maxilla,  was  protruding  from  the  sur- 
face, and  part  of  it  was  lost.  The  bones  of  the  tail 
and  some  of  the  smaller  podial  bones  were  removed 
a  distance  from  the  rest  of  the  skeleton,  and  were 
collected  separately  by  Mr.  Sternberg.  The  head 
was  lying  partly  upon  its  left  side,  and  some  of  the 
bones  of  the  right  side  had  been  macerated  away. 
The  maxilla  indeed  had  disappeared. 

"  The  task  of  removing  and  mounting  the  bones 


1 1 2  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

has  required  the  labor  of  Mr.  H.  T.  Martin  the 
larger  part  of  a  year,  and  is  as  finally  mounted,  an 
example  of  great  labor  and  skill  on  his  part.  .  .  . 
The  skeleton,  as  mounted,  is  just  ten  feet  in  length. 
The  neck  in  life  must  have  been  thick  and  heavy  at 
the  base.  The  trunk  was  broad;  the  abdominal  re- 
gion short  between  the  girdles;  the  short  tail  was 
thick  at  its  base.  The  species  was  named  in  honor 
of  Professor  H.  F.  Osborn,  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity." 

In  his  introduction  Dr.  Williston  speaks  of  the 
-great  scientific  value  of  this  specimen  of  the  plesio- 
saurian  family,  of  which  he  says:  "Thirty-two 
species  and  fifteen  genera  have  been  described  from 
the  United  States,  and  in  not  a  single  instance  has 
there  been  even  a  considerable  part  of  the  skeleton 
made  known." 

I  am  glad  that  the  University  of  Kansas  owns 
this  splendid  denizen  of  her  ancient  Cretaceous  sea. 

My  collection  in  the  Royal  Museum  of  Munich  is 
said  by  Dr.  H.  F.  Osborn  to  be  the  finest  prepared 
collection  of  Kansas  Chalk  and  Texas  Permian  ver- 
tebrates in  the  world.  A  recent  letter  from  my  friend 
Dr.  Broili,  an  assistant  there,  says  that  the  collection 
contains  over  eighty-five  distinct  species  of  extinct 
vertebrates.  Among  these,  there  are  eighteen 
species  and  seven  genera  new  to  science.  Seven 
papers  have  been  published  describing  this  material, 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     113 

by  J.  C.  Merriam,  A.  R.  Crook,  Charles  R.  Eastman, 
F.  B.  Loomis,  F.  Broili,  L.  Neumayer,  and  L. 
Strickler,  respectively;  and  it  has  been  illustrated 
by  forty  plates.  The  lamented  German  paleon- 
tologist, Dr.  Carl  von  Zittel,  under  whom  I  served 
the  Munich  museum  for  several  years,  wrote  me  that 
I  had  erected  here  "  an  immemorial  monument "  to 
my  name. 

Here  rests,  far  from  its  native  shores,  the  most 
complete  skeleton  of  the  Cretaceous  shark,  Oxyrhina 
mantelli  Agassiz,  ever  discovered  in  any  formation. 
It  formed  the  basis  for  the  inaugural  address  de- 
livered by  Charles  R.  Eastman  before  the  Ludwig- 
Maximilian  University  of  Munich. 

I  discovered  this  specimen  while  conducting  an 
expedition  for  Dr.  von  Zittel.  I  was  entirely  alone, 
and  camping  on  one  of  the  ravines  that  score  the 
southern  slope  of  the  Smoky  Hill  valley,  south  of 
Buffalo  Park.  I  had  already  found  a  number  of 
flattened  disks,  the  centra  of  fish  vertebrae,  which 
Dr.  Williston  had  assured  me  belonged  to  a  species 
of  shark,  as  he  had  found  teeth  associated  with 
them.  I  was  delighted,  therefore,  to  find  here  a 
continuous  string  of  them  leading  into  a  low  knoll. 
I  quickly  shoveled  away  the  loose  chalk  and  cleaned 
up  the  floor,  to  find  the  whole  column,  nearly  twenty 
in  length;  while  the  skull  was  represented  by  great 
plates  of  cartilaginous  bone,  containing  some  two 


H4  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

hundred  and  fifty  teeth  from  the  roof  and  floor  of 
the  mouth.  The  larger  teeth  were  over  an  inch  long 
and  covered  with  a  shining,  dark-colored  enamel. 
They  were  as  sharp  and  polished  as  in  life,  and  lay 
in  or  near  their  natural  positions. 

This  is  the  first  time  and,  I  believe,  the  only  time 
that  so  complete  a  specimen  of  this  ancient  shark  has 
been  discovered.  The  column  and  other  solid  parts 
were  composed  of  cartilaginous  matter  which 
usually  decays  so  easily  that  it  is  rarely  petrified. 
I  suppose  my  specimen  was  old  at  the  time  of  its 
death,  and  bony  matter  had  been  deposited  in  the 
cartilage.  It  is  not  very  likely  that  such  a  specimen 
will  ever  be  duplicated.  Dr.  Eastman's  study  of 
this  skeleton  enabled  him  to  make  synonyms  of 
many  species  which  had  been  named  from  teeth 
alone. 

Among  the  most  valuable  of  my  further  dis- 
coveries in  the  Kansas  chalk  beds  was  that  of  two 
nearly  complete  skeletons  of  that  great  sea  tortoise, 
Protest  eg  a  gig  as  Cope.  The  type  had  already  been 
described  by  Professor  Cope  from  a  number  of  dis- 
connected bones  which  he  found  near  Fort  Wallace 
in  1871. 

In  1903  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  find  a  practically 
complete  skeleton  of  Protostega  gigas  in  normal  con- 
dition, that  is,  with  the  bones  all  in  or  near  their 
original  positions.  The  late  Dr.  J.  B.  Hatcher, 


10        ^ 

II 

# 

§  # 

c/i    cu 

o  ,0 

s  g 


» 


Si 


FlG.    21. — FOSSIL  LIMB  BONES  OF  THE  GlANT  SEA  TORTOISE,   ProtOStcgd 

Collected  by  Charles  Sternberg. 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     1 1 5 

whose  death  in  the  very  noonday  of  his  glorious 
career  as  a  fossil  hunter  cast  a  gloom  over  the  world 
of  paleontology,  purchased  this  specimen  from  me 
for  the  Carnegie  Museum.  It  has  been  described 
in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Carnegie  Museum  by  Dr.  G. 
R.  Wieland,  the  authority  on  extinct  turtles,  under 
the  title  "  The  Osteology  of  Protostega"  He  says, 
on  page  289 :  "  The  third  of  a  century  which  elapsed 
since  Cope's  discovery  of  Protostega  gigas,  has  not 
sufficed  to  bring  forth  a  complete  restoration  of  any 
single  individual  of  these  great  sea-turtles.  How 
welcome  then  has  been  the  discovery  during  the  last 
two  years  by  Mr.  Charles  Sternberg  in  the  Niobrara 
Cretaceous  of  western  Kansas,  of  the  nearly  com- 
plete specimens  of  Protostega  gigas  which  permit 
the  present  description  of  the  organization  of  the 
limbs,  the  most  important  of  the  parts  yet  un- 
described  as  well  as  the  very  least  likely  to  be  re- 
covered in  complete  form."  (Fig.  21.) 

This  rare  fossil  was  briefly  mentioned  by  Pro^ 
fessor  Osborn  also  in  Science  as  a  "  complete  skele- 
ton of  Protostega  which  lay  on  its  dorsal  surface 
with  fore  limbs  stretched  out  at  right  angles  to  the 
median  line  of  the  carapace,  measuring  six  feet 
between  the  ungual  phalanges." 

A  second  specimen,  which  I  discovered  and  sold 
directly  to  Dr.  W.  J.  Holland,  the  director  of  the 
Carnegie  Museum,  is  thus  described  by  Dr.  Wieland 


1 1 6          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

on  page  282  of  the  Memoirs,  under  the  heading 
"  Specimen  No.  1421,  Carnegie  Museum  Catalogue 
of  Vertebrates  " : 

"  This  fine  fossil  is  from  the  Niobrara  Cretaceous 
of  Hackberry  Creek."  (I  should  like  to  correct  this 
mistake.  It  was  found  about  three  miles  northwest 
of  Monument  Rocks  in  a  ravine  that  empties  into 
the  Smoky,  east  of  where  Elkader  once  stood.) 
*  The  ex  situ  portions  of  the  original  skeleton,  which 
had  weathered  out  and  are  secured  in  more  or  less 
complete  condition,  include  the  left  humerus,  radius, 
ulna,  etc.  The  in  situ  portion  consists  of  the  right 
anterior  part  of  the  skeleton,  and  was  secured  on  a 
single  slab  of  matrix,  in  which  it  still  remains  in- 
tact, as  shown  in  the  accompanying  drawing  by  Mr. 
Prentice,  including  the  lower  jaw  in  oblique  inferior 
view,  the  skull,  the  T-shaped  nuchal  (plate)  and 
two  marginals.  It  will  be  seen  what  exceedingly 
satisfactory  information  is  furnished  by  the  present 
specimen  as  compared  with  all  other  examples  of 
Protostega  hitherto  found.  Specimen  1420  [my 
first  specimen]  is  more  complete  than  any  other  at 
present  discovered.  As  originally  embedded  in  its 
matrix  of  chalk,  nearly  every  element  was  present 
in  an  exactly  or  approximately  natural  position. 
Unfortunately,  the  collector  of  this  surprisingly 
complete  fossil,  in  an  attempt  to  remove  and  separate 
the  bones  from  their  original  matrix  of  chalk, 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     1 1 7 

mismarked  some  of  them,  and  also  made  it  im- 
possible to  either  replace  more  than  a  few  of  the 
marginal  elements,  or  to  determine  the  outlines  of 
any  of  the  plastral  elements.  Such  work  is  dif- 
ficult enough  in  well-equipped  laboratories.  How- 
ever, none  of  the  bones  of  the  limbs  are  broken,  and 
Mr.  Sternberg  redeemed  himself  by  discovering  and 
securing  in  such  excellent  condition  No.  1421,  as 
just  related." 

I  learn  from  one  of  the  Museum's  staff  that  this 
specimen  is  to  be  mounted  this  summer  of  1908,  and 
placed  on  exhibition.  As  long  as  the  Carnegie 
Museum  stands,  this  splendid  example  of  the  great 
sea-tortoise  will  be  admired  by  lovers  of  nature.  In 
shape  it  is  very  like  the  present-day  turtle  of  the 
Mediterranean.  Its  huge  front  paddles,  with  a  span 
of  ten  feet,  were  armed  with  horrid  claws.  The 
hind  ones  were  stretched  out  parallel  with  the  body 
and  used  as  sculls  by  this  "  boatman  of  the 
Cretaceous." 

An  account  of  my  work  in  the  Kansas  Chalk 
would  not  be  complete  without  some  mention  of  my 
discovery,  in  several  small  localities,  of  the  crinoid 
Uintacrinus  sodalis  Grinell.  According  to  Mr. 
Frank  Springer,  our  noted  American  authority  on 
this  subject,  only  seven  localities  were  known  in  1901 ; 
he  did  not  know  of  my  discoveries.  I  can  bear  wit- 
ness with  him,  though,  to  the  rarity  of  this  species. 


1 1 8  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

During  the  fifteen  years  in  which  I  have  gone  over 
the  chalk  exposures  again  and  again,  I  can  remember 
only  three  localities  of  these  fossils,  the  Martin 
locality,  another  three  miles  to  the  east  of  it,  and  a 
third  on  Butte  Creek  near  Elkader.  The  first  has 
yielded  the  finest  specimens  among  those  which  were 
described  by  Mr.  Springer  in  his  magnificent  treatise 
on  Uintacrinus,  published  by  the  Museum  of  Com- 
parative Zoology  at  Harvard  University. 

Last  year,  however,  my  son  George  found  two 
splendid  specimens  about  fifty  feet  apart,  further 
east  than  they  had  been  discovered  before.  The 
locality  is  south  of  Quinter,  in  the  southern  part  of 
Gove  County,  thirty-seven  miles  east  of  the  Martin 
locality.  These  two  colonies  each  contained  about 
forty  calices.  As  usual,  they  are  flattened  out  on 
the  under  side  of  a  calcareous  slab  about  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  thick  and  beveled  off  as  thin  as  paper  at  the 
margins.  One  slab  was  sent  to  the  Senckenberg 
Museum  in  Germany,  while  Mr.  Springer  secured 
the  other. 

The  calyx,  or  as  we  have  called  it,  "  the  head,"  has 
ten  long  arms,  some  of  them  about  thirty  inches 
long.* 

These  beautiful  globular  animals  were  stemless, 
and  evidently  lived  in  swarms,  as  single  specimens 

*  A  restoration  of  the  Uintacrinus  is  shown  in  the  same  il- 
lustration (Fig.  na)  in  which  the  Clidastes  is  represented. 


Further  Work  in  Kansas  Chalk     119 

are  never  found.  According  to  Mr.  Springer,  when 
death  overtook  one  of  these  swarms,  it  fell  to  the 
bottom,  where  the  first  individuals  were  buried  in 
the  soft  mud  and  preserved,  while  the  others,  not 
being  so  protected,  disintegrated.  The  limy  plates 
of  the  calices  and  those  of  the  arms,  which  were  thus 
mingled  together  above  the  perfect  specimens,  be- 
came compressed  into  a  hard  slab,  in  the  bottom  of 
which  the  perfect  specimens  are  firmly  impressed. 

Great  numbers  of  these  creatures  have  been  dis- 
covered in  the  English  chalk,  but  they  consist  only 
of  the  disintegrated  plates. 


CHAPTER  V 

DISCOVERY  OF  THE  LOUP  FORK  BEDS 

OF     KANSAS     AND     SUBSEQUENT 

WORK  THERE,  1877  AND  1882-84 

BOUT  the  first  of  July,  1877,  I  received 
orders  to  go  north  to  the  Loup  Fork 
River  in  Nebraska  to  search  for  verte- 
brate fossils  in  beds  of  the  Upper  Mio- 
cene, called  by  Hayden  the  Loup  Fork  Group.  I 
happened  to  meet,  however,  an  old  line  hunter, 
Abernathy  by  name,  who  had  brought  into  Buffalo 
his  last  load  of  buffalo  hides,  and  he  told  me  that  a 
little  above  his  cabin,  on  the  middle  branch  of  Sappa 
Creek  in  Decatur  County,  there  was  the  skull  of  a 
mastodon,  sticking  out  of  the  solid  rock. 

As  a  visit  to  his  house  would  not  take  me  far  out 
of  my  way,  I  followed  his  lead ;  and  thanks  to  the 
observation  of  this  old  hunter,  who  was  scalped  in 
front  of  his  door  the  next  year  by  a  band  of  hostile 
Kiowas,  I  had  the  privilege  of  discovering  the  rich 
fossil  beds  of  the  Loup  Fork  Group  in  northwestern 
Kansas,  and  found  enough  to  do  without  crossing 
into  Nebraska. 

120 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  121 

The  whole  country  north  of  Buffalo  was  without 
human  habitation  until  we  reached  the  old  man's 
cabin.  On  our  way  there,  as  we  were  driving  one 
sultry  day  down  the  long  slope  to  the  south  branch 
of  the  Soloman,  we  chanced  to  look  behind  us,  and 
as  high  as  the  eye  could  reach,  the  air  was  as  black 
as  midnight  with  flying  dust,  dry  grass,  and  buffalo 
chips.  Experience  had  taught  us  what  all  this 
meant.  Will  Brouse  laid  the  whip  to  the  ponies,  but 
they  did  not  need  it.  They,  too,  had  taken  fright, 
and  tore  down  the  hill  at  breakneck  speed.  On 
reaching  the  valley,  we  came  upon  a  perpendicular 
bluff,  over  twenty  feet  high,  impinging  on  the  level 
flat,  and  Will  swung  the  horses  under  its  protecting 
shelter.  We  sprang  out,  and  while  one  of  us  un- 
hitched and  tied  the  horses,  the  rest  caught  hold  of 
the  wagon  and  held  it  down.  In  an  instant  all  was 
dark,  while  the  rush  of  a  mighty  wind  swept  over 
us  with  a  terrible  roar  and  passed  on,  leaving  a  calm 
in  its  wake.  As  we  followed  its  trail  along  the 
river,  we  found  large  trees  twisted  off  at  the  stump 
or  broken  to  pieces,  their  branches  scattered  like 
straws. 

About  sundown  one  evening,  the  old  man  pointed 
out,  in  a  side  draw  of  the  middle  fork  of  the  Sappa, 
his  mastodon.  I  sprang  from  the  wagon,  shouting, 
"  It's  a  monster  turtle !  "  And  so  it  proved  to  be,  a 
great  land  turtle,  over  thirty  inches  long,  twenty- 


122  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

eight  inches  wide,  and  fifteen  inches  high;  Testudo 
orthopygia  Cope  called  it.  The  back  of  the  cara- 
pace was  sticking  out  of  a  ledge  of  grey  sandstone. 
We  applied  our  picks,  and  soon  had  the  specimen 
collected.  (Fig.  22.) 

Now  began  an  extremely  interesting  search  for 
this  new  fauna  in  Kansas.  The  rocks  in  this  part  of 
the  state  usually  consist  of  gray  sand  cemented  to- 
gether with  washed  chalk  and  soluble  silica.  The 
foundation  on  which  these  beds  were  deposited  is 
the  Niobrara  Group  of  the  Cretaceous.  The  river 
beds  were  cut  in  this  soft  lime,  and  later  on  the  wash 
of  the  land  mingled  the  whiting  with  the  sand  and 
gravel  which  the  streams  brought  down  from  the 
mountains.  The  tops  of  the  hills  are  capped  with 
this  conglomerate  gray  sandstone  in  ledges  many 
feet  in  thickness,  and  as  the  materials  composing  it 
easily  disintegrate,  great  masses  of  it  lie  at  the  bases 
of  the  cliffs,  resembling  old  mortar.  I  called  them 
mortar  beds,  and  the  stratigraphers  have  adopted  the 
name.  Indeed,  they  are  mortar  beds  not  only  in 
name,  from  a  fancied  resemblance  to  mortar,  but  in 
fact,  as  all  the  early  settlers  can  testify.  It  was  no 
trouble  for  them  to  find  beds  so  soft  that  the  material 
could  easily  be  dug  out,  and  when  mixed  with  water 
and  spread  with  trowels  over  the  inside  walls  of  a 
sod  house,  it  made  a  very  comfortable  home.  When 
it  comes  to  comfort,  the  settlers  of  the  short-grass 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  123 

country  have  gained  nothing  by  building  frame  in- 
stead of  sod  houses.  The  early  settler's  sod  house 
was  cool  in  summer  and  warm  in  winter,  and  those 
who  live  in  more  modern  houses  in  order  to  keep  up 
with  the  times  will  even  now  speak  with  regret  of 
the  change. 

Not  only  did  I  secure  a  number  of  specimens  of 
these  great  turtles,  so  abundant  at  this  time,  but 
also  large  quantities  of  the  remains  of  a  rhinoceros. 
Cope  thought  it  hornless,  and  named  it  Aphelops 
megalodus,  but  since  then  Hatcher  has  found  that 
the  male  bore  a  loose  horn  on  the  end  of  the  nasal 
bones. 

I  also  got  specimens  of  the  great  inferior  tusked 
mastodon,  Trilophodon  campester  Cope.  This  re- 
markably primitive  mastodon  had  a  lower  jaw  that 
projected  beyond  the  molar  teeth  for  two  feet  in  a 
straight  line,  with  a  socket  on  either  side,  containing 
two  powerful  tusks  that  terminated  in  chisel  points. 
One  specimen,  which  I  discovered  in  1882  for  the 
Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  in  Cambridge, 
had  a  jaw  four  feet  long,  including  the  tusks,  which 
extended  eighteen  inches  beyond  the  end  of  the  jaw. 

A  set  of  jaws  was  brought  me  by  my  son  last 
fall.  It  belongs  to  a  new  form  of  this  gigantic 
pachyderm,  which,  during  the  Loup  Fork  times, 
inhabited  northwestern  Kansas  and  a  vast  territory 
west  and  northwest  as  far  as  the  John  Day  basin 


124          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

in  eastern  Oregon.  A  remarkable  peculiarity  of 
this  specimen  is  that  the  symphysis  is  greatly  elon- 
gated and  curves  downward  thirteen  inches  below 
the  level  of  the  alveolus,  which  bears  the  great  molar 
teeth.  This  individual  was  an  old  animal,  as  he  had 
shed  his  first  dentition  and  all  the  premolars  and 
molars  of  the  second  except  the  very  last,  those 
which  we  call  wisdom  teeth.  Even  these  are  well 
worn;  so  the  days  of  the  mastodon's  life  must  have 
been  numbered  even  if  he  had  escaped  his  enemy, 
the  great  saber-toothed  tiger,  which  preyed  on  him 
and  the  other  herbivorous  animals  of  the  day. 

The  length  of  these  remarkable  jaws  is  four  feet 
and  one  inch.  The  height  at  the  condyle,  where 
they  connect  with  the  skull,  is  thirteen  and  a  half 
inches;  length  of  molar,  nine  and  a  quarter  inches; 
height  of  crown,  two  and  one-half  inches;  distance 
between  the  two  molars,  four  inches.  The  sockets 
for  the  great  inferior  tusks  are  two  feet  long  and 
six  inches  in  diameter,  and  the  huge  recurved  tusks 
themselves  must  have  been  over  four  feet  long. 
Only  a  sight  of  these  peculiar  jaws,  with  tusks  above 
and  below,  can  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  for- 
midable appearance  of  this  early  mastodon.  By  the 
large  size  and  downward  curvature  of  the  lower 
tusks,  this  mastodon  suggests  the  great  Dinotherium 
of  the  Lower  Pliocene  of  Europe.  I  regret  for 
America's  sake,  but  I  am  glad  for  the  sake  of  the 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  125 

world,  that  these  jaws  of  the  largest  mammal  ever 
found  in  Kansas  will  find  their  last  resting-place  in 
the  great  British  Museum,  where  many  of  my  finest 
discoveries  have  gone. 

Another  splendid  set  of  lower  jaws  I  found  in 
1905  in  the  Sternberg  Quarry,  of  which  I  shall 
speak  later,  for  the  Royal  Museum  of  Munich,  Ba- 
varia. Part  of  the  symphysis  was  broken  off,  as 
were  also  the  inferior  tusks.  The  length  of  the 
jaw  as  preserved  is  two  feet,  six  inches  and  a  half, 
and  the  height  of  the  condyle,  fourteen  inches.  In 
the  center  of  the  grinding  surface,  the  height  is  nine 
and  a  half  inches.  The  length  of  the  molar  is  about 
seven  and  a  half  inches,  and  the  width  three  and  a 
half.  This  is  Professor  Cope's  Trilophodon. 

We  found  near  this  mastodon  many  chisel-like 
tusks  that  had  fallen  out  of  their  respective  jaws  and 
lay  scattered  with  the  other  bones.  By  comparing 
this  specimen  with  the  new  species,  it  will  be  noticed 
that  there  is  quite  a  difference  in  size,  though  evi- 
dently they  were  about  the  same  age,  as  in  both 
cases  all  the  teeth  have  been  discarded  except  the 
last  molars. 

The  teeth  of  these  animals  were  kept  sharp  by  the 
sand  that  adhered  to  the  roots  on  which  they  lived. 
Falling  into  the  pits  and  valleys  between  the  crests 
of  enamel,  it  scoured  away  the  dentine  and  cemen- 
tum,  and  kept  the  great  grinders  ever  sharp  and 


126          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

ready  for  use.  It  is  a  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  these  early  mastodons  that  their  tusks  have  a  strip 
of  enamel  along  the  inside,  while  the  modern 
elephants'  tusks  have  only  a  vestige  of  enamel  at  the 
extreme  tip  that  is  quickly  worn  off. 

Another  remarkable  inhabitant  of  Kansas  during 
the  Loup  Fork  Period  was  the  three-toed  horse,  an 
animal  but  little  larger  than  the  newborn  colt  of  an 
ordinary  farm  horse,  which  evidently  lived  in  herds, 
judging  from  the  great  quantity  of  loose  teeth  that 
we  have  found.  Its  toes  were  spreading,  which  en- 
abled it  to  walk  over  bogs  and  mossy  quagmires  on 
the  shores  of  lakes  or  rivers,  and  thus  escape  the 
fangs  of  bloodthirsty  tigers  by  venturing  farther 
out  on  the  soft  ground  than  they  dared  to  follow. 

In  1882,  while  employed  by  the  Agassiz  Museum, 
I  found  the  famous  Sternberg  Quarry  at  Long  Isl- 
and on  Prairie  Dog  Creek  in  Phillips  County.  I 
had  been  exploring  for  weeks  the  region  at  the  head 
of  the  branches  of  Deer  Creek,  which  spread  out  in 
the  divide  like  a  fan;  but  although  once  in  a  while, 
especially  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bread  Bowl 
Mound,  I  had  found  fragments  of  the  bones  of 
Loup  Fork  animals  in  the  sod,  I  had  not  met  with 
much  success,  as  the  rocks  here  disintegrate  so  easily 
and  hold  moisture  so  readily  that  the  whole  country 
is  covered  with  grass.  There  are  thirty-three 
streams  in  this  county  as  a  result  of  the  immense 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  127 

amount  of  moisture  which  accumulates  in  these 
sandstone  beds  and  is  carried  to  the  surface  in 
springs. 

One  very  hot  day  I  started  to  cross  the  divide  to 
Prairie  Dog  Creek.  I  had  the  wagon  sheet  stretched 
over  the  bows,  the  sides  lifted  to  admit  the  breeze, 
and  sleepy  with  the  heat,  I  let  the  horses  go  on  about 
as  they  pleased;  not  noticing,  until  the  level  rays  of 
the  sun  warned  me  that  it  was  time  to  camp,  that  I 
had  gone  farther  east  than  I  had  intended.  I  had 
my  camp  outfit  with  me,  however,  and  as  I  saw  a 
bunch  of  trees  in  a  ravine  a  mile  from  the  creek  I 
knew  that  there  must  be  water  there.  So  the  three 
requisites,  grass,  wood,  and  water,  were  at  hand. 

After  pitching  the  tent,  and  starting  supper,  I 
found  to  my  delight  a  large  exposure  of  hard 
siliceous  rock,  consisting  of  sand  and  chalk  held 
firmly  together  by  soluble  sand,  which  proved  to  be 
the  bottom  ledge  of  a  deposit  of  gray  sandstone.  I 
soon  found  above  it  a  mastodon's  bones.  My  joy 
knew  no  bounds,  however,  when  following  the  nar- 
row draw  up  to  its  head,  I  found  that  it  cut  through 
a  quarry  of  rhinoceros  bones,  which  were  sticking 
out  of  the  sand  on  either  side,  while  the  narrow  ditch 
at  the  bottom  was  filled  with  toe  bones,  complete  or 
in  fragments,  and  broken  skulls  and  teeth  without 
number.  I  have  collected  fossil  vertebrates  and 
plants  since  I  was  seventeen  years  old,  but  this  is  the 


128  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

greatest  deposit  of  fossils  that  I  have  ever  dis- 
covered. 

I  shall  never  forget  how,  carried  away  with  en- 
thusiasm, I  took  possession  in  the  name  of  Science 
of  the  largest  bone  bed  in  Kansas.  I  did  not  stop 
to  ask  whether  anyone  else  had  any  interest  in  the 
land,  nor  did  I  think  it  necessary.  I  had  grown  so 
used  in  my  own  case  to  putting  aside  every  other 
consideration  for  the  sake  of  the  advancement  of 
science  that  it  did  not  occur  to  me  that  anyone  else 
might  take  a  different  view.  But  one  day,  as  I  was 
working  in  the  ravine,  an  old  man,  plowing  corn, 
drove  up  to  its  eastern  edge.  When  he  made  the 
turn,  he  chanced  to  look  across  and  saw  me,  pick  in 
hand,  diligently  uncovering  the  skull  of  a  rhinoceros 
from  the  sandbank  on  the  other  side.  He  instantly 
shouted  with  all  the  strength  of  his  lungs,  "  What 
are  you  doing  ?  " 

"  Digging  up  antediluvian  relics,"  I  shouted  back. 
We  both  shouted  as  if  we  were  a  hundred  yards 
apart. 

"  Well,"  he  called,  "  get  out  of  there !  " 

"  All  right,"  I  answered  in  the  same  loud  tones, 
and  kept  on  working. 

The  old  man,  whose  name  I  learned  later  was  Mr. 
Overton,  disappeared,  and  I  heard  no  more  of  him 
until  I  went  into  Long  Island  for  food,  or  grub  as 
they  say  in  the  West,  and  was  told  that  he  had  come 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  129 

in  to  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  asked  for  a  warrant 
to  arrest  me  for  collecting  these  old  bones.  He 
never  again  came  directly  to  me,  either  that  year  or 
the  following,  but  people  told  me  that  he  went 
around  to  all  the  justices  in  that  part  of  the  country, 
trying  to  get  his  warrant.  Finally,  however,  they 
managed  to  convince  him  that  I  was  not  harming 
him,  and  was  benefiting  science. 

Two  years  later,  in  1884,  I  was  employed  by  the 
late  Professor  Marsh  to  explore  this  same  fossil  bed. 
The  bones  which  I  was  after  now  were  covered  by 
fourteen  feet  of  moulding  sand  and  a  four-foot  ledge 
of  hard  rock,  the  heavier  bones  lying  on  the  sand- 
stone, the  lighter  ones  mingled  with  the  sand  above. 
This  sand  and  rock  had  to  be  removed  by  pick  and 
scraper,  which  meant  that  there  was  a  large  amount 
of  heavy  labor  before  us.  Therefore,  having  more^ 
means  at  my  command  than  I  had  had  before,  I 
drove  up  to  Mr.  Overton's  door  and  offered  him 
forty  dollars  a  month  to  work  for  us  with  his  team 
during  the  whole  summer,  with  the  understanding 
that  I  was  to  have  all  the  fossils  found.  This  offer 
he  gladly  accepted,  and  I  found  him  a  very  careful 
worker.  Not  only  did  he  do  the  rough  work  well, 
but  when  we  got  a  floor  laid  bare  above  the  bones, 
he  proved  to  be  a  most  careful  collector.  My  other 
assistant  on  this  expedition  was  a  Mr.  Will  Russ, 
who  afterwards  became  a  skilful  dentist. 


130          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Our  method  of  work  was  first  to  cut  down  and 
remove  the  sand  and  rock  for  a  space  twenty  feet 
wide  and  perhaps  a  hundred  long,  using  a  plow  and 
scraper.  Then  we  cleaned  up  our  floor  and  un- 
covered the  bones  with  oyster  knives  and  other  tools 
which  we  had  made  to  suit  our  purpose.  One,  I  re- 
member, was  a  hoe  straightened  out  at  the  shank  and 
cut  off  at  the  corners  to  make  a  diamond-shaped  tool. 
With  this  we  could  work  under  the  high  bank,  and 
take  out  specimens  which  we  could  not  reach  other- 
wise. Trowels  and  diggers  of  various  patterns  were 
used  also. 

The  bones  which  we  were  collecting  lay  scattered 
along  both  sides  of  the  ravine  for  a  quarter  of  a 
mile,  often  in  pockets  or  pot-holes  in  the  gray  sand- 
stone. Of  this  there  are  two  layers,  about  four- 
teen feet  apart,  the  interspace  being  filled  with  beds 
of  fine  moulding  sand,  with  some  whiting  from  the 
underlying  chalk,  which  constituted  the  land  sur- 
face when  these  fresh-water  beds  were  deposited. 
There  are  also  beds  of  sand  that  have  been  washed 
clean  by  the  currents  of  the  flood-plain  of  some 
ancient  river,  for  the  exposed  section  shows  all  the 
different  deposits  of  an  overflowed  valley.  Above 
the  washed  sand  is  a  stratum  of  sand  and  clay,  in- 
dicating that  here  was  a  quiet  place  where  the 
muddy  backwater  deposited  its  load.  This  layer, 
upon  exposure,  cracks  in  all  directions,  like  the  mud 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  131 

at  the  bottom  of  a  puddle  after  the  water  has 
evaporated. 

It  has  always  been  a  problem  to  account  for  the 
number  of  the  animals  represented  here,  and  for  the 
fact  that  the  bones  are  so  scattered.  All  parts  of 
the  skeletons  are  mingled  in  the  greatest  confusion, 
with  no  two  bones  in  a  natural  position.  One  is,  of 
course,  forced,  after  an  observation  of  this  country, 
to  agree  with  Drs.  Matthew  and  Hatcher  that  these 
bones  were  deposited  in  the  flood-plain  of  a  running 
stream  and  not  in  great  lakes,  as  was  believed  by 
older  geologists.  But  the  only  supposition  upon 
which  I  can  account  for  the  intermingling  of  all  the 
bones  of  the  skeletons  on  the  bottom  sandstone  layer 
is  that  the  fine  sand  through  which  the  bones  were 
distributed,  becoming  saturated  with  water,  was 
converted  into  a  quicksand,  in  which  the  bones  sank 
until  they  reached  the  impenetrable  layer  below ;  the 
heavier  bones  of  course  being  at  the  bottom. 

What  caused  the  death  of  the  countless  individuals 
in  the  Sternberg  Quarry,  is  a  question  not  easily 
answered.  The  authorities  quoted  above  believe 
that  during  the  Upper  Miocene  Period,  there  were 
many  water-courses  separated,  by  slightly  elevated 
divides  and  broad  flood-plains,  with  possibly  here 
and  there  small  lakes,  where  the  dense  vegetation 
had  clogged  some  sluggish  stream.  But  during  a 
rainy  season  of  unusual  duration,  the  whole  region 


132          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

for  many  miles  must  have  been  converted  into  a 
series  of  lakes;  and  all  the  animals  in  the  vicinity, 
after  having  gathered  at  the  highest  points  they 
could  find  to  escape  death,  must  have  been  finally 
overwhelmed  by  some  great  flood  that  covered  every 
inch  of  ground.  Then  after  maceration  took  place, 
the  bones  might  have  been  scattered  by  other  floods. 

A  theory  of  my  own,  equally  plausible,  is  that  the 
animals  were  buried  beneath  a  sandstorm,  which 
tore  loose  the  fine  sand  of  the  flood-plain,  and  scat- 
tered it  in  suffocating  volumes  over  the  frightened 
multitudes  which  had  herded  together  in  search  of 
safety  or  courage. 

This  land,  now  three  thousand  feet  above  sea 
level,  was  only  a  few  feet  above  when  these  rhinoc- 
eroses moved  over  it  in  countless  herds.  Every- 
where were  swamps  filled  with  sponge  moss,  and 
tropical  streams,  whose  wealth  of  vegetation  formed 
thick  jungles  along  their  banks.  On  firmer  ground, 
great  areas  were  covered  with  a  dense  growth  of 
rushes,  through  which  the  paths  of  these  animals 
were  the  only  trails;  while  higher  up  still,  the  soft 
damp  soil  gave  a  foothold  to  forests,  through  which 
the  great  mastodons  sounded  their  trumpet  calls,  as 
they  roamed  about,  tearing  up  trees  with  their  pow- 
erful trunks  and  feasting  upon  the  rich,  juicy  roots. 

That  year,  1884,  in  which  I  explored  the  quarry 
at  Long  Island,  was  a  memorable  one,  not  only  be- 


FIG.  24. — THREE-TOED  HORSE,  Hypohippus. 
From   the  Middle  Eocene  of  Colorado.      fAffer  Oidlev.">        In   American 


s   >. 

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I 

o 

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s 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  133 

cause  we  secured  a  large  carload  of  rhinoceros 
bones,  but  also  because  we  had  with  us  Mr.  J.  B. 
Hatcher,  who  afterwards  helped  to  build  up  three 
great  museums  of  vertebrate  paleontology, — the 
museums  of  Yale  and  Princeton  and  the  Carnegie 
Museum.  With  the  last  he  was  connected  at  the 
time  of  his  death  in  1904,  just  twenty  years  after  he 
made  his  first  collection  of  vertebrate  fossils  with 
me.  A  bright,  earnest  student,  he  gave  promise  of 
a  future  even  then  by  his  perfect  understanding  of 
the  work  in  hand  and  the  thoughtful  care  which  he 
devoted  to  it.  I  have  always  been  glad  that  I  had 
the  honor  of  being  his  first  teacher  in  the  practical 
work  of  collecting,  although  he  soon  graduated 
from  my  department,  and  requested  me  to  let  him 
take  one  side  of  the  ravine  while  I  worked  the  other. 
He  employed  Mr.  Overton's  son  with  a  plow  and 
scraper,  and  got  out  a  magnificent  collection  with  no 
further  instructions  from  me. 

That  same  year  Professor  Marsh  came  to  my 
quarry  and  leased  it  from  the  owner,  and  I  never 
saw  it  again  until  1905,  when  I  came  into  my  own 
once  more,  and  in  addition  to  the  splendid  mastodon, 
mentioned  earlier  in  this  chapter,  found  the  material 
for  two  perfect  mounts  of  the  rhinoceros.  One  is 
to  be  mounted  at  Munich,  the  other  at  Bonn. 

With  Professor  Osborn's  consent,  I  give  a  photo- 
graph of  the  fine  specimen  (Fig.  25)  which  Dr. 


134  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Wortman  secured  in  1894  from  this  quarry  for  the 
American  Museum.  A  vast  collection  from  the 
same  spot  is  stored  in  the  National  Museum  in  its 
original  packages,  with  which  I  filled  a  car  in  1884. 
I  saw  there  a  whole  case  filled  with  the  skulls  of 
the  rhinoceros  Teleoceras  fossiger,  which  I  secured 
in  great  numbers  at  Long  Island. 

It  is  strange  to  think  that  the  foundation  on  which 
these  beds  of  fresh-water  deposits  lie  unconformably 
is  the  great  Cretaceous  sea  bottom,  whose  tilted  and 
uplifted  strata  tower  two  thousand  feet  above  the 
carboniferous  rocks  in  eastern  Kansas.  The  Re- 
publican, Smoky  Hill,  and  Kansas  rivers  have 
carved  their  way  through  all  these  strata,  so  that  by 
following  down  these  streams,  one  can  get  cross 
sections  of  the  country. 

I  have  often  asked  men  who  were  sure  that  there 
must  be  coal  beneath  the  surface,  why,  instead  of 
hiring  a  man  to  dig  a  hole  for  them,  they  did  not 
hitch  up  their  buggies  and  follow  the  valley  of  the 
Smoky  Hill,  beginning  at  the  Colorado  line.  The 
first  stratum  exposed  is  of  course  the  recent,  with  its 
sandy  loam;  in  it,  here  and  there,  a  crumbling  buf- 
falo skull  or  an  eroded  implement.  Then  comes  the 
Pleistocene  deposit,  consisting  of  clay,  sand,  and 
fragments  of  rock  mingled  together.  From  this 
formation  I  secured  over  two  hundred  teeth  of  the 
great  Columbian  Mammoth.  Next  come  beds  of 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  135 

black  shale  with  giant  septaria,  the  Fort  Pierre 
Group  of  the  Cretaceous,  whose  upper  beds  we  ex- 
plored in  Montana  in  1876  for  dinosaurs.  In  this 
formation,  in  Kansas,  I  found  a  new  species  of 
Clidastes.  The  specimens  are  now  in  the  Kansas 
University  collection,  and  the  species  has  been 
named  by  Dr.  Williston  Clidastes  westi,  in  honor  of 
the  Kansas  University  collector,  the  late  Judge  E.  P. 
West. 

We  have  not  gone  far  down  the  river  below  the 
forks,  before  this  formation,  which  at  McAllister 
topped  the  hills,  passes  under  the  river.  Then 
reddish  and  blue  chalks  occupy  the  country  for  some 
miles,  and  in  turn  disappear  to  give  place  to  yel- 
lowish and  blue  chalks,  which  finally  make  way  for 
the  blue  and  almost  white  chalks  that  run  under  the 
river  near  the  mouth  of  Hackberry  Creek  in  eastern 
Gove  County. 

At  White  Rock  in  Trego  County  the  hard  white 
limestone,  in  fortification  blocks,  is  piled  ninety  feet 
high.  Further  down  appears  the  post  limestone  of 
the  Fort  Benton  Group,  with  its  characteristic  Ino- 
ceramus  shells;  while  in  central  Kansas,  brown  and 
white  sandstone  and  brilliantly  colored  clays  occupy 
the  whole  region  for  sixty  miles,  giving  place  at 
last  to  the  hard  limestones  and  the  friable  shales  and 
sandstones  of  the  Upper  Carboniferous.  No  coal, 
except  very  shallow  veins  in  the  Upper  Carbonif- 


136  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

erous  and  the  Dakota  Group  of  the  Cretaceous, 
has  even  been  found  in  this  big  ditch,  which,  less 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide  at  the  head  of  the 
Smoky  Hill  branch  at  Wallace,  broadens  out  to  a 
width  of  several  miles  at  the  mouth  of  the  Kansas 
River. 

It  is  impossible  to  compute  the  vast  amount  of 
mineral  matter  which  has  been  cut  out  from  these 
Kansas  plains  and  carried  by  the  river  into  the 
Mississippi  and  on  to  the  Gulf.  Since  the  first  nar- 
row trench  cut  its  way  through  the  hardened  ooze  of 
the  Cretaceous  ocean  bed,  all  the  flood-plains  of  the 
Missouri  and  the  Mississippi  below  Kansas  City 
have  been  enriched  by  the  material  that  once  covered 
these  valleys  of  Kansas,  and  the  delta  below  New 
©rleans  has  been  partly  built  up  by  it. 

It  may  interest  my  readers  and  give  them  a 
glimpse  into  the  daily  routine  of  a  fossil  hunter's 
life,  if  I  quote  one  or  two  notes  from  a  diary 
which  I  kept  during  my  work  in  these  Loup  Fork 
beds. 

"Friday,  July  n. — This  is  to  record  the  most 
successful  day  since  we  have  been  in  the  field.  We 
have  collected  three  sets  of  under-jaws,  three  skulls. 
It  has  been  extremely  hot.  We  have  put  in  eight 
hours  of  hard  work." 

"  Saturday,  July  12. — To-day  I  got  out  and 
packed  our  three  skulls  and  three  lower  jaws.  They 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  137 

were  within  the  space  of  a  square  yard.  We  got 
some  very  fine  bones,  and  best  of  all,  a  perfect  front 
foot  in  position,  a  perfect  humerus,  a  perfect  femur, 
except  proximal  articulation,  the  premaxilla  of  a  cat 
with  a  huge  canine  (saber-toothed  tiger).  We  got 
great  quantities  of  the  bones  of  the  feet,  an  axis,  and 
one  other  vertebra  in  good  state  of  preservation,  a  fine 
scapula,  etc.  This  afternoon  has  been  the  hottest 
day  of  the  season,  but  this  evening  the  wind  changed 
to  the  north,  and  it  is  quite  cool.  I  got  in  addition  to 
the  specimens  mentioned  a  maxilla  of  a  saber- 
toothed  tiger.  The  enormous  young  canine  was 
two  inches  long  and  three-quarters  of  an  inch 
wide." 

I  might  go  on  and  quote  indefinitely,  but  the  story 
would  be  about  the  same.  I  recall,  however,  one  or 
two  incidents  connected  with  my  work  in  this 
field,  which  may  be  amusing  or  interesting  to  my 
readers. 

Once  in  1882,  while  collecting  for  the  Museum  of 
Comparative  Zoology  of  Harvard  University,  I  met 
an  old  gentleman  and  his  dear  old  wife,  the  hair  of 
both  showing  upon  it  the  snows  of  many  winters, 
sitting  on  a  board  laid  across  a  dry-goods  box  to 
which  two  wagon  wheels  had  been  attached.  A 
team  of  ponies  harnessed  with  rope  instead  of 
leather,  with  lines  of  the  same  material,  completed 
the  outfit.  The  old  man  and  his  wife  sat  up  very 


138          Life  of  a  Fossil   Hunter 

straight  and  dignified  and  demanded  of  me  what  I 
was  doing  in  that  part  of  the  country. 

"  Oh,"  I  answered,  "  I'm  looking  for  rhinoceros 
bones  in  the  loose  sand  of  the  hills  here." 

"  Well,"  the  old  man  said,  "  I  am  interested  in 
these  old  bones  myself.  I  don't  claim  to  be  a 
scholar;  in  fact,  I  am  quite  illiterate,  but  I  think 
when  this  earth  was  in  a  molten  state,  these  old 
hippopotamuses  wallowed  around  in  the  mud  and 
got  congealed  in  the  rocks." 

The  following  incident  I  did  not  find  quite  so 
amusing.  One  day  I  discovered  turtle  shells  stick- 
ing out  on  either  side  of  a  narrow  gulch  which  cut 
through  a  large  deposit  of  sand.  In  digging  out 
those  already  in  sight,  I  found  many  more ;  collect- 
ing in  all  some  twenty  fine  specimens,  but  all  quite 
small.  Following  down  the  gorge,  I  discovered 
that  it  opened  out,  on  Beaver  Creek  in  Rawlins 
County,  into  a  great  amphitheater  several  acres  in 
extent  and  almost  denuded  of  vegetation;  an  ideal 
place  for  fossil  hunting,  as  the  elements  had  been 
digging  out  and  removing  the  sand  for  ages.  And 
sure  enough,  I  soon  stumbled  upon  the  complete 
shell  and  skeleton,  four  feet  in  diameter,  of  a  speci- 
men of  Cope's  Testudo  orthopygia;  but  it  nearly 
broke  my  heart  to  find  that  while  the  specimen  had 
weathered  out  in  a  perfect  condition,  some  vandal — 
for  I  shall  ever  maintain  that  the  wanton  destruc- 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  139 

tion  of  life  that  now  is  or  of  the  remains  of  life  that 
once  was,  is  wicked, — some  man  had  chopped  it  all 
to  pieces  with  a  mattock. 

Passing  on  in  a  not  very  pleasant  frame  of  mind, 
I  came  upon  another  individual  of  huge  proportions, 
which  had  suffered  the  same  fate,  and  then  upon 
another;  all  that  this  rich-looking  ground  afforded 
had  been  utterly  ruined. 

Angry  at  the  thought  that  any  man  should  com- 
mit such  sacrilege, — for  to  me  these  footsteps  of 
the  Creator  in  the  sands  of  time  are  sacred, — and 
bitterly  disappointed,  since  I  knew  that  I  should 
very  likely  never  again  come  upon  such  huge  speci- 
mens of  the  reptilian  life  of  that  age,  I  walked  into 
camp  blinded  by  hot  tears,  and  failed  to  notice  a 
stranger  who  was  sitting  there  on  a  box. 

"  Some  infernal  vandal  has  been  up  this  ravine," 
I  shouted  to  Will,  "  and  dug  up  with  a  mattock  three 
of  the  finest  turtles  I  ever  saw." 

As  if  he  had  been  shot,  the  man  jumped  from  the 
box  and  exclaimed  in  accents  of  heartfelt  contri- 
tion, "  It  was  me.  I  was  out  here  digging  roots  to 
build  a  fire  with,  and  ran  across  them.  I  didn't 
know  they  had  any  value,  and  I  wanted  to  see  what 
was  inside  of  them  and  dug  into  them." 

His  surprise  and  dismay  were  so  comical  that  the 
murder  vanished  from  my  heart,  and  overwrought 
as  I  was,  I  broke  out  into  a  fit  of  uncontrollable 


140          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

laughter  which  used  me  up  for  the  rest  of  the 
day. 

Another  time  I  had  a  rather  unusual  experience. 
My  assistant,  a  Mr.  Wright,  and  I  were  digging 
out  rhinoceros  bones  on  Sappa  Creek.  We  had 
noticed  a  house  on  the  other  side  of  the  creek,  al- 
though dense  timber  cut  off  most  of  its  surround- 
ings, and  happening  to  look  toward  it  once,  we  saw 
a  girl  of  about  sixteen  years  rush  out  from  the  tim- 
ber and  begin  to  climb  the  steep  hill  toward  us.  I 
never  saw  anyone  run  so  fast  up  so  steep  a  hill. 
Her  strength  failed  her,  however,  when  she  got  to 
us,  and  it  was  some  time  before  she  could  tell  her 
story.  It  seems  that  her  mother  had  gone  out  to 
milk,  and  as  the  ground  was  slippery  from  a  rain  of 
the  night  before,  she  had  fallen  and  dislocated  one 
of  the  bones  in  the  palm  of  her  hand. 

All  the  men  were  away  and  had  taken  all  the 
horses,  and  it  was  seventeen  miles  to  the  nearest 
doctor.  The  girl,  knowing  that  we  were  digging  up 
bones,  had  concluded  that  we  could  set  them,  and 
had  come  to  us  for  help.  Although  I  had  never  at- 
tempted anything  of  the  kind  before,  I  could  not  re- 
sist the  poor  child's  appeal  and  went  to  the  house. 
The  mother  lay  moaning  on  her  bed,  and  would 
answer  nothing  when  I  asked  whether  I  should  try 
to  set  her  hand.  But  as  the  girl  was  very  desirous 
that  I  should  make  the  attempt,  I  decided  to  do  so. 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  141 

So  while  Mr.  Wright  held  the  arm,  I  put  splints  and 
a  roller  bandage  under  the  hand,  which  was  laid  on 
a  table,  and  then  forcibly  pushed  the  bone  back  into 
its  natural  position.  After  which  I  bandaged  the 
hand  tightly.  I  left  directions  with  the  girl  to  hang 
a  can  of  water  with  a  small  hole  in  it  over  the  hand, 
so  that  the  water  might  drip  on  it  and  by  evapora- 
tion cool  it  and  prevent  inflammation.  My  instruc- 
tions were  carried  out  by  the  brave  girl,  and  her 
mother's  hand  was  soon  as  well  as  ever. 

In  these  last  chapters  I  have  often  wandered  far 
afield,  for  it  would  have  taken  too  long  to  relate  all 
the  events  of  my  various  expeditions  in  consecutive 
order.  Hoping  that  my  readers  will  pardon  the 
digressions,  I  return  to  the  expedition  of  1877. 

Russell  Hill  proved  a  most  efficient  assistant,  and 
it  has  always  grieved  me  that  he  should  in  later  years 
have  given  up  work  in  the  fossil  fields  for  the 
practice  of  medicine.  Will  Brouse,  too,  was  an 
enthusiastic  worker;  he  was  not  satisfied  to  be 
relegated  to  the  pots  and  kettles  and  horses,  and  not 
only  did  his  duty  as  our  teamster  and  cook,  but 
soon  accomplished  almost,  if  not  quite  as  much  in 
the  field  as  any  one  of  us.  I  never  had  a  more 
congenial  party  in  all  the  years  of  my  field  work. 

But  one  day  in  August  I  received  a  bulky  letter 
from  Professor  Cope.  "  Turn  over  all  the  outfit  to 
Mr.  Hill,"  he  wrote,  "  and  go  at  once  to  a  new  field 


142  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

discovered  in  the  desert  of  eastern  Oregon.  Go  to 
Fort  Klamath,  Oregon,  and  from  there  to  Silver 
Lake,  to  a  man  by  the  name  of  Duncan,  the  post- 
master. He  will  guide  you  to  the  fossil  bed  in  the 
heart  of  the  sage-brush  desert.  You  will  likely  find 
human  implements  mingled  with  extinct  animals. 
You  are  to  go  secretly;  tell  no  one  where  you  are 
going.  Have  your  mail  sent  by  a  circuitous  route, 
so  you  cannot  be  traced." 

I  received  the  Professor's  order  with  excitement 
and  great  joy;  but  in  spite  of  his  injunction  to  start 
at  once  and  without  communicating  my  intention  to 
anyone,  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  leave  for  the 
Pacific  Coast,  to  be  gone  for  an  indefinite  time,  with- 
out bidding  good-by  to  my  father  and  mother,  and  I 
concluded  that  even  if  someone  should  find  out 
where  I  was  going  and  try  to  follow  me  I  could 
easily  give  him  the  slip  and  get  to  the  field  first. 

Buffalo,  the  nearest  railway  station,  was  seventy- 
five  miles  away,  a  two  days'  journey,  with  our  big 
load  of  fossils.  So  I  mounted  my  riding  pony  and 
made  the  long  trip  the  next  day,  reaching  the  station 
at  sunset,  tired  and  sore.  My  pony,  however,  en- 
dowed with  the  enduring  power  characteristic  of  a 
good  Indian  pony,  was  still  fresh  enough  to  shy  at  a 
rattlesnake  in  the  road,  and  as  I  happened  to  be  sit- 
ting sideways  in  the  saddle,  throw  me  to  the  ground 
within  a  few  feet  of  the  snake. 


The  Loup  Fork  Beds  143 

That  night  I  went  to  my  home  in  Ellsworth 
County,  bade  my  dear  ones  good-by  for  an  indefinite 
length  of  time,  and  was  back  at  Buffalo  again  at 
midnight  of  the  following  day.  My  boys  met  me  at 
the  station  with  my  roll  of  blankets,  tools,  and  bag- 
gage, and  away  I  went  to  "  fresh  fields  and  pastures 


new." 


CHAPTER  VI 

EXPEDITION  TO  THE  OREGON  DESERT 
IN  1877 

Monument  Station,  I  was  surprised  to 
see  Mr.  S.  W.  Williston  get  aboard  with 
all  his  outfit.  Williston  did  not  know  at 
first  that  I  was  on  the  train,  and  when  he 
entered  my  car,  he  was  greatly  astonished,  thinking 
that  I  was  on  his  trail.  He  tried  to  find  out  my 
destination,  but  failed.  We  slept  together  at  Den- 
ver. Then  he  took  a  train  south,  while  I  went  north 
toward  Cheyenne  and  the  West. 

Onward  our  train  sped  toward  the  land  of  the 
setting  sun,  through  the  grand  and  impressive 
scenery  of  the  Rockies  and  Sierra  Nevadas.  At 
Sacramento  I  took  the  railroad  for  Redding,  where, 
with  seven  other  passengers,  I  entered  a  Concord 
coach  drawn  by  a  team  of  eight  horses,  and  con- 
tinued my  journey  by  stage. 

It  was  a  lovely  August  evening.  The  moon  was 
at  its  full,  and  the  night  was  almost  as  bright  as  day. 
No  sound  broke  the  deep  silence,  except  now  and 

then  the  whoo  of  an  owl  as  it  called  to  its  mate  far 

144 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      145 

away  in  the  depth  of  the  forest,  or  the  plash  of  run- 
ning water  falling  in  cascades  over  the  shelving 
rocks  and  dashing  against  the  boulders. 

Higher  and  higher  we  climbed,  through  primeval 
forests  of  spruce  and  fir,  whose  branches  clove  the 
sky  a  hundred  feet  above  our  heads.  The  rarefied 
air  filled  our  lungs  with  its  life-giving  tonic,  ex- 
hilarating us  like  wine.  We  knew  that  far  above  us 
rose  Mount  Shasta,  the  giant  of  the  range,  but  for  a 
time  the  heavy  timber  shut  out  the  view,  and  we 
could  see  only  the  road  ahead,  winding  up  and  up 
through  the  forests.  Then  suddenly,  without  warn- 
ing, we  moved  above  the  timber-line,  and  Mount 
Shasta  stood  revealed  in  all  its  beauty,  a  perfect 
cone,  towering  four  thousand  feet  into  the  air,  its 
robes  of  everlasting  snow  glistening  in  the  moon- 
light. Above,  in  the  clear  blue  of  the  sky,  the  stars 
sparkled  like  jewels  in  an  immortal  canopy. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  any  of  us  had  looked 
upon  that  majestic  scene,  and  whatever  may  have 
been  the  differences  of  temperament  among  us,  we 
were  one  in  the  feeling  of  awe  which  the  glorious 
picture  inspired.  It  laid  a  spell  upon  us;  we  were 
dumb  before  the  invisible  presence  of  the  Power  that 
had  reared  this  stupendous  pinnacle,  and  involun- 
tarily our  thoughts  turned  to  that  "  city  that  hath 
foundations,  whose  builder  and  maker  is  God/' 

Then  to  break  the  awful  silence,  and  give  some 


146          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

vent  to  our  emotions,  we  broke  out  into  the  old  song, 
"  'Way  down  upon  the  Suwanee  River  " ;  and  so  we 
journeyed  on  for  many  hours,  never  out  of  sight  of 
that  majestic  form. 

At  Ashland  I  was  obliged  to  wait  for  a  driver 
with  a  buckboard  and  a  team  of  ponies  to  take  me 
to  Fort  Klamath,  Oregon.  I  was  at  that  time  a 
great  lover  of  the  gentle  art  of  fishing,  and  early  in 
the  morning,  before  it  was  fully  light,  I  was  astir 
among  the  great  live-oaks  that  grace  the  town. 
Walking  through  the  sleeping  village,  I  ran  across 
the  footprints  of  a  large  grizzly  bear  in  the  dust  of 
the  road,  and  followed  them  through  the  vacant 
streets.  Wherever  a  gate  had  been  left  open,  the 
bear  had  entered  the  yard,  walked  around  the  house, 
and  come  out  at  the  gate  again.  I  hoped  to  get  a 
glimpse  of  him,  but  was  disappointed,  as  the  tracks 
led  into  the  gloom  of  the  forest.  So  I  went  fishing, 
and  caught  some  speckled  beauties  for  breakfast. 

That  evening  I  was  driven  over  to  Fort  Klamath, 
where  I  was  kindly  invited  to  take  possession  of  the 
commanding  officer's  quarters  and  make  myself  at 
home;  an  invitation  which  I  proceeded  to  accept  at 
once. 

Learning  that  a  sheep-owner  a  few  miles  away 
had  killed  a  grizzly,  I  went  out  to  his  camp  to  see  it. 
Sure  enough,  there  lay  the  mighty  carcass,  encircled 
with  four  inches  of  grease,  enough  for  the  polls  of 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      147 

all  the  boys  in  Oregon.  It  seemed  that  as  the  time 
for  his  winter  nap  was  approaching,  Mr.  Bruin  had 
been  laying  in  a  supply  of  fuel  by  devouring  the  fat 
wethers  of  our  friend's  flock.  The  latter  had  built 
a  heavy  brush  fence  around  the  sheep,  and  with  the 
help  of  a  large  number  of  hounds,  had  kept  his 
range  free  from  coyotes,  but  he  had  been  helpless 
before  the  attacks  of  this  big  bear.  When  he 
watched  on  top  of  the  brush  fence,  he  was  not 
molested,  but  no  sooner  did  he  seek  the  comfortable 
cot  in  his  tent,  than  his  slumbers  were  broken  by  the 
piteous  bleat  of  some  sheep,  as  it  was  carried  off  to 
the  woods  by  the  bear. 

About  ten  days  before  I  reached  Klamath,  he  had 
been  awakened  in  the  middle  of  the  night  by  a  com- 
motion in  the  flock,  and  rushing  out  in  his  shirt  into 
the  cool  night  air,  had  seen  the  bear  only  ten  feet 
away,  across  a  deep  and  narrow  stream.  Without 
thinking  of  the  consequences  to  himself  if  he  only 
wounded  the  creature,  he  opened  fire  with  his  Win- 
chester, and  the  first  shot  broke  the  bear's  neck. 

When  I  arrived,  the  skin  had  been  removed,  but 
the  huge  carcass,  which  must  have  weighed  at  least 
a  ton,  had  been  lying  in  the  hot  August  sun  ever 
since.  The  sheep-owner  (I  am  sorry  that  I  have 
forgotten  his  name,  as  I  was  under  heavy  obliga- 
tions to  him)  promised  me  that  after  breakfast  he 
would  help  me  in  the  not  very  enviable  task  of  re- 


148          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

moving  the  decaying  flesh  from  the  bones.  But 
after  one  whiff  from  the  windward  side,  he  asked 
a  pertinent  question,  was  I  fond  of  trout,  and 
upon  my  answering  yes,  remarked  that  he  knew  of 
a  creek  where  he  could  get  some  beauties,  and  im- 
mediately disappeared.  I  saw  him  no  more  that 
morning. 

At  the  first  thrust  of  my  knife  into  the  bear,  the 
stench  was  so  horrible  that  I  grew  deathly  sick.  I 
filled  my  pipe  and  tried  to  find  relief  in  smoking,  but 
even  then  the  odor  was  overpowering,  and  I  smoked 
and  sickened  through  the  livelong  day,  until  I  had 
cleaned  the  filthy  flesh  from  the  bones,  and  they  had 
been  tied  up  in  gunny-sacks  and  hung  in  a  tree  to 
dry.  Then  into  the  creek  I  went  and  with  soap  and 
sand  scrubbed  and  scoured  my  body;  but  the  horrid 
smell  still  hung  about  me,  and  I  could  eat  neither 
supper  nor  breakfast  the  next  morning,  although  at 
dinner  I  managed  to  stow  away  a  good  square  meal. 
But  even  now,  after  thirty  years,  if  you  say  "  bear  " 
to  me,  I  can  smell  that  bear. 

At  Klamath  I  hired  for  my  assistant  a  man  named 
George  Loosely.  I  also  bought  two  saddle  ponies 
and  one  to  carry  the  pack;  and  with  a  government 
tent  and  other  outfit  and  rations  purchased  at  the 
commissary, — we  had  our  flour  baked  into  bread  byv 
the  post  baker, — we  started  for  Silver  Lake,  al- 
though no  one  at  the  post  could  give  us  any  direc- 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      149 

tions.  I  had  a  department  map,  sent  to  me  by  Pro- 
fessor Cope,  which  recorded,  mistakenly  as  we 
found  later,  that  Sprague  River  rose  in  Silver  Lake. 
The  government  road  to  the  east  crossed  the  Wil- 
liamson River  on  a  government  bridge,  and  came  to 
an  abrupt  end  in  an  Indian  village  on  the  western 
bank  of  Sprague  River.  So  we  decided  to  take  the 
road  as  far  as  we  could  and  then  follow  up  the  river 
to  its  source  in  the  lake. 

When  we  reached  the  Williamson  River,  we 
found  there  the  lodge  of  a  Snake  Indian,  who  ap- 
peared dressed  in  red  paint  and  a  breech-cloth,  and 
demanded  toll.  But  as  American  citizens  we  had 
paid  taxes  to  help  pay  for  that  bridge;  so  we  refused 
to  pay  toll  for  the  use  of  our  own  property,  and  rode 
across  in  spite  of  the  threats  hurled  at  us. 

We  reached  Sprague  River  that  same  evening, 
and  went  into  camp  a  short  distance  from  a  large 
Indian  town.  The  houses,  built  by  government 
contractors  of  rough  logs,  consisted  of  a  single  room 
with  a  shake  roof.  The  Indians  had  torn  out  the 
board  floors,  and  instead  of  using  the  fireplaces  and 
chimneys  which  the  builders  had  erected  for  their 
convenience,  they  had  cut  holes  in  the  roofs,  and 
built  their  fires  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  sleeping 
around  them  at  night  as  their  fathers  used  to  do  in 
their  lodges  or  Sibley  tents. 

George,  who  was  more  familiar  with  them  than  I 


150          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

was,  learned  that  a  chief  lay  dying  in  one  of  the 
houses,  and  after  supper  he  left  me  and  went  to 
witness  the  death  ceremonies.  After  stowing  away 
the  bread  and  coffee  between  our  mattresses  and 
covering  them  with  blankets,  and  hiding  the  bacon 
at  the  bottom  of  the  mess  box  with  tin  dishes  piled 
on  top  of  it  so  that  I  should  hear  the  rattle  if  a 
thieving  Indian  attempted  to  get  at  it,  I,  being  tired, 
dropped  off  to  sleep. 

About  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  George  ap- 
peared, having  been  shut  up  in  the  house  with  the 
dying  chief  all  night.  When  the  medicine  man 
began  his  incantations,  the  doors  and  windows  were 
closed,  while  the  steaming  Indians  danced  in  a  circle 
around  the  dying  chief,  forcing  the  unwilling 
George  to  take  part  in  the  ceremonies.  All  night 
long  they  moved  around  in  their  death  dance  to  the 
music  of  their  drums  and  the  wild  gesticulations  of 
the  medicine  man,  and  when  George  finally  got 
away,  he  was  about  exhausted.  He  was  soon  lost  in 
sleep,  and  as  I  habitually  lie  on  my  sound  ear, 
neither  of  us  heard  anything  through  the  night. 
But  the  next  morning,  when  George  had  put  on  the 
coffee  to  boil  and  went  into  the  mess  box  for  the 
bacon,  it  had  disappeared.  The  dishes  had  been 
carefully  replaced. 

After  a  breakfast  of  bread  and  coffee,  we  were 
early  in  the  saddle,  taking  a  heavy  trail  that  led  north 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      151 

and  skirted  Sprague  River.  By  the  merest  chance, 
we  met  a  white  man,  the  first  we  had  seen  since  leav- 
ing the  post,  and  we  stopped  to  ask  the  way  to  Sil- 
ver Lake.  A  number  of  Snake  Indians  were  stand- 
ing around  at  the  time.  The  man  told  us  to  go  north 
on  the  trail  to  a  sheep  camp  in  Sican  Valley,  where 
we  would  receive  further  directions,  and  thanking 
him,  we  rode  confidently  forward. 

Just  as  the  sun  was  sinking,  we  entered  a  splendid 
forest  of  fir  and  spruce,  and  soon  found  that  our 
trail  forked.  The  heavy,  well-traveled  branch 
turned  a  little  west  of  north;  the  other,  leading  due 
north,  had  apparently  not  been  used  since  last  year, 
as  it  was  covered  with  old  leaves.  We  did  not 
know  what  to  do,  as  the  man  whom  we  had  met  in 
the  morning  had  not  mentioned  this  fork.  While 
we  were  talking  about  it,  we  heard  the  jingling  bells 
of  a  pack  horse  or  Indian  cayuse,  and  soon  a  boy 
hove  in  sight,  driving  a  couple  of  pack  ponies. 
Moving  to  one  side  to  let  him  pass,  I  asked  him 
where  he  was  going. 

"  To  Sican  Valley,  to  a  sheep  ranch,"  he  an- 
swered, and  immediately  was  lost  to  sight  among 
the  giant  trees.  We  meekly  fell  in  behind  and 
hurried  after  him. 

Suddenly  we  came  out  into  a  natural  park,  the  end 
of  our  trail.  Five  Indian  lodges  stood  about  in  the 
open  space,  and  five  valiant  braves,  in  their  usual 


152  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

attire  of  paint  and  breech-cloths,  with  the  in- 
evitable Winchester,  stepped  forward  to  inform 
us  that  "  white  man  was  lost  in  the  woods," 
and  that  they  would  show  him  the  trail  for  two 
dollars. 

"  Where  is  that  miserable  papoose?  "  I  demanded, 
but  they  only  grinned  and  repeated,  "  We  will  show 
you  the  road  for  two  dollars." 

It  was  my  habit,  in  a  crisis  of  this  kind,  to  smoke, 
for  I  regret  to  say  that  I  was  for  many  years  a  lover 
of  the  soothing  weed ;  so,  drawing  out  of  my  saddle- 
bag a  pound  of  fragrant  "  Lone  Jack,"  I  proceeded 
to  fill  my  pipe  and  decide  upon  my  further  course. 
Instantly  the  Indians  crowded  around  me,  and  drop- 
ping the  butts  of  their  guns  to  the  ground,  pulled  out 
their  tobacco  pouches,  and  opening  them  wide,  held 
them  up  to  be  filled,  crying  in  chorus,  "  Me  tobac! 
Me  tobac!" 

But  the  memory  of  the  deceitful  boy  was  still 
rankling  in  my  mind.  I  told  George  to  follow  me 
with  the  pack  horse,  and  deliberately  lighting  my 
pipe  and  filling  my  lungs  with  smoke  to  their  utmost 
capacity,  I  blew  a  cloud  of  it  into  the  faces  of  the 
expectant  beggars.  Then  I  drove  my  spurs  into  my 
pony's  flanks  and  started  off  in  a  mad  race  against 
time,  as  the  long  shadows  warned  me  only  too 
plainly  that  the  daylight,  our  only  guide  now,  would 
soon  leave  us.  I  did  not  look  back,  but  George,  who 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      153 

did,  saw  the  Indians,  in  anger,  level  their  rifles  as 
they  shouted  to  us  to  stop. 

That  race  with  darkness  was  an  exciting  one, 
but  just  before  night  overtook  us,  we  reached  the 
trail  which  we  had  left  to  follow  the  lying  Indian 
boy.  In  our  haste,  our  bread  had  been  torn  from  its 
sack  by  the  outstretched  limb  of  a  tree,  and  was  lost. 
However,  we  were  so  thankful  to  have  escaped 
paying  toll  to  those  filthy  Snakes,  that  we  cheer- 
fully made  our  supper  of  coffee,  and  sought  our 
blankets. 

At  the  first  streak  of  daylight,  after  another  meal 
of  coffee,  we  were  in  our  saddles ;  and  we  traveled 
all  day,  until,  just  as  the  sun  was  setting,  we  heard 
the  welcome  bleat  of  sheep  and  saw  the  herders 
driving  their  flocks  down  the  slopes  of  the  neigh- 
boring hills  to  their  corrals  in  Sican  Valley.  Fol- 
lowing them,  we  soon  spied  the  camp  in  the  heavy 
timber  and  smelled  the  delicious  savor  of  a  pot  of 
mutton  that  was  boiling  over  the  fire.  And  before 
long,  seated  at  the  rude  table,  we  were  enjoying  to 
the  uttermost  the  hospitality  of  the  camp. 

We  had  learned  on  the  journey  that  Sprague 
River  rises  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains,  instead  of 
in  Silver  Lake,  and  we  had  crossed  the  divide  be- 
tween it  and  the  lake  before  reaching  Sican  Valley. 
The  next  morning  our  sheepmen  directed  us  on  our 
way;  and  that  same  evening  we  were  skirting  the 


154          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

lake's  lovely  shores.  Its  wide  expanse  of  water  put 
me  in  mind  of  my  boyhood  days  on  Otsego  Lake  or 
the  Glimmer-glass. 

We  soon  reached  the  hospitable  home  of  Mr. 
Duncan,  the  postmaster  of  Silver  Lake.  He  had 
built  a  comfortable  house  of  logs,  with  a  large 
chimney  at  one  end  and  an  old-fashioned  fireplace, 
around  which,  as  the  nights  were  cold,  we  gathered 
and  talked  until  far  into  the  night. 

Mr.  Duncan's  family  consisted  of  his  wife  and 
daughter,  a  dear,  good  girl,  who  will  forgive  me,  I 
am  sure,  if  I  tell  a  story  at  her  expense.  George 
and  I  were  sent  to  bed  in  a  lean-to,  and  as  our  bed- 
room was  next  to  that  of  the  Duncans  and  the  stop- 
pings had  fallen  out  of  some  of  the  chinks  in  the 
wall  between,  we  could  hear  everything  that  was 
said  in  their  room.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  I 
woke  up  and  heard  the  old  gentleman  talking  to  his 
wife  about  their  daughter. 

"  Mother,"  he  said,  "  I  think  John  will  be  a  good 
husband  for  Mary,  don't  you  ?  " 

Before  she  could  answer,  Mary,  who  had  a  bed 
at  the  other  end  of  the  parents'  room,  called  out 
with  great  energy,  "  I  think  so  too,  father !  " 

In  an  instant  all  was  still,  while  George  and  I,  in 
our  efforts  to  keep  quiet,  stuffed  the  bedclothes  into 
our  mouths  until  we  were  almost  suffocated. 

We  unloaded  our  weary  pack  horse,  and  the  next 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      155 

day  brought  our  supplies,  and  loaded  them  into  Mr. 
Duncan's  wagon.  Then  taking  him  with  us  for 
guide,  we  started  on  our  long  drive  to  the  boneyard, 
fifty-six  miles  through  the  great  sage-brush  desert 
of  eastern  Oregon. 

On  we  journeyed,  through  what  seemed  an  inter- 
minable expanse  of  sage-brush,  greasewood,  and 
sand.  The  bunches  of  sage-brush  topped  conical 
mounds  of  sand,  whose  sides  were  scoured  and 
polished  by  the  winds  that  howled  in  and  out 
through  the  labyrinth  of  hills,  laden  with  drifting 
sand.  If  one  could  have  gained  an  elevation  above 
the  level  of  these  sandhills,  and  looked  out  over  the 
landscape,  one  would  have  gazed  upon  a  scene  of 
even  greater  desolation  than  that  afforded  by  the 
parched  short-grass  plains  of  western  Kansas, — a 
dreary,  monotonous  waste  of  olive  green,  stretching 
away  north,  east,  and  south,  as  far  as  the  eye  could 
reach,  and  shut  in  on  the  west  by  the  great  ranges  of 
the  Sierras,  whose  flanks,  dark  below  the  timber 
line  with  heavy  forests,  were  deeply  scarred  above 
with  glistening  white  glaciers. 

We  followed  the  California  road  to  Oregon,  for 
in  those  days  Oregon  was  practically  an  unknown 
territory,  with  the  exception  of  the  Willamette  Val- 
ley. And  I  suppose  that  it  is  still  so,  for  that  moist, 
fertile  valley  differs  as  widely  from  the  vast  semi- 
desert  east  of  the  Cascade  Range  as  the  Santa  Clara 


156  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Valley  from  the  cactus-covered  sandhills  of  southern 
California. 

At  night,  after  a  day's  journey  through  sand  and 
sage-brush,  we  came  to  a  ranch  beside  an  alkaline 
lake  in  the  very  heart  of  the  desert.  Here,  in  a 
cabin  built  of  logs  from  the  neighboring  mountains, 
lived  the  hermit  of  this  region,  a  man  named  Lee 
Button.  Had  it  not  been  that  the  road  passed  his 
door,  he  would  have  seen  only  a  hunter  now  and 
then,  out  after  the  deer  which  abounded  in  the 
desert,  or  perhaps  the  cattlemen  when  in  winter  they 
turned  their  cattle  loose  in  the  desert  to  look  out  for 
themselves.  On  all  the  neighboring  ranches,  the 
cattle  were  turned  into  the  desert  for  food  and  shel- 
ter in  winter.  Here,  protected  from  storms,  they 
fed  upon  the  alkaline  grass  and  sweet  sage  and  upon 
the  thick  leaves  which  fell  in  handfuls  from  the 
greasewood  bushes.  These  cattle  had  cut  innumer- 
able paths  at  every  conceivable  angle,  and  one  un- 
accustomed to  the  country  might  easily  become  con- 
fused and  lose  himself  in  the  labyrinth  of  trails. 
There  was  horror  in  the  thought  of  being  lost  in  that 
solitude. 

Mr.  Duncan  put  up  his  horses  in  the  barn  of  the 
ranch,  which  was  well  stocked  with  hay  and  oats, 
and  we  picketed  our  ponies  on  a  flat  covered  with 
alkaline  grass  on  the  borders  of  the  lake.  Then 
from  under  a  certain  post  which  he  knew  of,  Mr. 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      157 

Duncan  dug  up  a  tin  can  containing  the  key  of  the 
cabin.  Past  experience  had  taught  Mr.  Button 
caution.  He  had  gone  to  California  once,  after  a 
herd  of  horses,  leaving  his  door  unlocked,  and  some 
prowling  immigrant  had  abused  his  hospitality  and 
robbed  his  cabin  of  its  store  of  food  and  blankets. 
So  now,  when  he  left  home,  he  locked  the  door  and 
hid  the  key,  giving,  however,  the  secret  of  its  hid- 
ing-place to  his  neighbor,  Mr.  Duncan. 

His  cooking  utensils,  consisting  of  a  camp  kettle, 
a  frying  pan,  a  Dutch  oven,  and  a  coffee  pot,  were 
brought  out  and  cleaned,  and  the  larder  searched 
for  food.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  country  at  that 
day  to  consider  food  and  shelter  free  to  all.  I  was 
offered  the  next  year  a  house,  blankets,  flour,  and 
bacon,  as  much  as  I  could  use  for  nothing,  if  I 
wanted  to  spend  the  winter  on  a  ranch  in  eastern 
Oregon.  I  was  only  expected  to  cut  my  own  wood 
and  cook  my  own  food. 

Soon  a  cheerful  fire  was  blazing  on  the  hearth, 
and  the  burning  sage-brush  was  filling  the  air  with 
that  indescribable  odor  from  which  one  is  never  free 
while  in  the  desert.  We  had  traveled  through  great 
droves  of  wild  geese  along  the  lake,  and  as  they 
were  so  tame  that  they  simply  stepped  out  of  our 
way  like  barnyard  geese,  we  did  not  think  it  worth 
while  to  waste  ammunition  on  them.  So  I  set  three 
traps,  common  steel  traps  such  as  are  used  for  catch- 


158  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

ing  coons,  and  strewed  oats  around  them.  The  next 
morning  I  found  a  brant  in  one,  a  magpie  in  an- 
other, and  the  house  cat  in  the  third.  We  let  the 
cat  and  the  magpie  go,  and  breakfasted  on  the  brant. 
Our  usual  fare  was  bacon,  bread,  and  coffee,  and 
sometimes  dried  apples.  I  worked  for  years  in 
Oregon  with  no  other  food,  except  an  occasional 
deer  or  mountain  sheep. 

The  next  day,  trusting  entirely  to  Mr.  Duncan's 
guidance,  we  pushed  on  without  a  trail,  winding  in 
and  out  among  the  hillocks  with  no  landmarks  but 
the  mountains  in  the  west.  At  sunset,  we  came  out 
into  the  open  on  the  shore  of  a  small  alkaline  lake. 
"  Fossil  Lake,"  I  named  it  at  once,  and  it  goes  by 
that  name  to  this  day.  This  pond,  as  we  should  call 
it  in  old  New  York,  covered  only  a  few  acres  then, 
and  is  now  entirely  dried  up. 

"  There,"  shouted  Mr.  Duncan,  as  he  pointed 
with  his  whip  to  the  lake  shore,  "  there  is  the 
bone-yard." 

I  instantly  requested  him  to  help  George  get  sup- 
per and  pitch  the  tent,  and  seizing  my  collecting 
bag,  rushed  down  to  the  shore.  The  clay  bottom  of 
the  ancient  lake  had  been  dried  out,  and  now  formed 
the  shore  of  the  remaining  water.  This  old  lake 
bed  had  once  extended  over  a  much  larger  area,  but 
it  had  been  partially  buried  beneath  large  piles  of 
drifting  sand.  Scattered  through  the  loose  sand 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      159 

and  on  the  clay  bed  were  great  numbers  of  the 
bones  and  teeth  of  reptiles,  birds,  and  mammals, 
indiscriminately  mingled.  I  had  come  upon  a  bone- 
yard  indeed. 

I  was  down  on  the  sand  at  once,  picking  up  bones 
and  teeth  and  putting  them  in  piles.  No  two  bones 
seemed  to  belong  together,  and  the  skulls  and  arches 
had  been  crushed  beneath  the  feet  of  animals,  prob- 
ably cattle  and  deer,  which  had  come  down  to  drink 
at  the  lake.  What  pleased  me,  however,  was  the 
fact  that  scattered  among  these  remains  of  an  earlier 
day,  were  arrow-heads  and  spear-points  of  polished 
obsidian,  or  volcanic  glass.  I  was  too  much  excited 
then  to  notice  that  I  did  not  find  a  single  bone  or 
tooth  in  its  original  position  in  the  clay  matrix,  but 
that  all  were  loose,  detached,  and  scattered,  and  that 
the  implements  were  lying  about  in  the  same  way. 

As  Mr.  Duncan  was  to  return  to  the  post-office  at 
Silver  Lake  the  next  morning,  I  gathered  a  cigar- 
boxful  of  loose  teeth,  arrowheads,  and  spear-points, 
and  packed  them  to  send  off  to  Professor  Cope. 
And  that  night,  by  a  sage-brush  fire,  I  wrote  the 
letter  which  he  saw  fit  to  publish  in  the  American 
Naturalist,  a  magazine  of  which  he  was  the  editor, 
under  a  title  of  his  own,  "  Pliocene  Man,"  and 
signed  "  E.  D.  Cope." 

For  weeks  I  sifted  through  my  fingers  the  fine 
sand  of  that  lake  shore,  picking  out  bone  after  bone. 


160          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

The  only  specimen  which  I  found  undisturbed  in 
the  clay  matrix  was  part  of  the  skull  of  a  hairy 
mammoth,  or  Elephas  primigenius. 

Dr.  Shufeldt  is  the  author  of  a  valuable  memoir 
on  the  fossil  birds  of  this  region, — "  The  Fossil  Avi- 
Fauna  of  the  Equus  Beds  of  the  Oregon  Desert," 
published  by  the  Philadelphia  Academy  of  Sciences. 
He  worked  over  the  collection  made  by  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Condon  of  the  Oregon  State  University,  the 
collection  which  Professor  Cope  made  a  few  years 
after  mine,  and  mine. 

In  these  three  collections,  he  finds  five  species  of 
grebes,  and  nine  of  gulls,  of  which  two  species  are 
new  to  science,  Professor  Condon  being  the  dis- 
coverer of  one,  while  I  found  the  other.  Of  cor- 
morants, there  are  two  species,  one  discovered  by 
Cope.  One  species,  quite  common  among  the  fossil 
remains,  is  now  extinct  There  is  a  new  swan  also, 
described  by  Professor  Cope,  who  writes  of  it : 
"  This  swan  was  discovered  by  ex-Governor  Whit- 
aker  of  Oregon  [who  discovered  the  Fossil  Lake 
locality]  in  the  Pliocene  formations  of  the  state. 
The  same  bird  was  afterwards  procured  by  my  as- 
sistant, Charles  H.  Sternberg."  Altogether  there 
are  nineteen  species  of  Anseres,  i.  e.,  geese,  ducks, 
swans,  etc.,  of  which  two  are  new. 

One  of  my  discoveries  was  a  flamingo,  which  was 
dedicated  to  Professor  Cope  under  the  title  Phoeni- 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      161 

copterus  copei.  Dr.  Shufeldt  says :  "  It  is  a  fact  of 
no  little  interest  that  a  flamingo  inhabited  the  lakes 
of  the  Silver  Lake  region  of  Oregon  during  the 
Pliocene  Epoch."  The  collections  include  a  heron 
and  a  couple  of  coots  also.  Among  the  fowl  are 
four  grouse,  discovered  by  Cope,  and  an  entirely 
new  genus  and  species  which  I  had  the  honor  of 
finding.  Of  eagles,  there  are  two  species.  There 
are  also  a  great  horned  owl,  a  blackbird,  and  a 
raven. 

Among  the  other  fossil  remains  taken  from  this 
region  are  six  genera  of  fish,  a  majority  of  them 
new,  and  fifteen  species  of  fossil  mammalia,  includ- 
ing two  llamas,  three  horses,  an  elephant,  a  dog,  an 
otter,  a  beaver,  a  mouse,  a  great  sloth,  Mylodon,  as 
large  as  a  grizzly  bear,  and  other  forms. 

"Thomas  Condon,"  writes  Dr.  Shufeldt  in  his 
memoir,  "  was  the  first  scientific  man  to  visit  the 
Fossil  Lake  region,  with  the  results  already  stated. 
Cope  and  his  assistant  Charles  Sternberg  came  later, 
and  gathered  many  hundred  bones  and  bone  frag- 
ments." And  in  the  preface  to  his  "  Tertiary  Verte- 
brata,"  Vol.  Ill,  page  xxvii,  Professor  Cope 
writes:  "  The  Tertiary  formations  explored  in  1878 
were  the  John  Day,  Loup  Fork,  and  Equus  beds. 
These  were  examined  by  Charles  H.  Sternberg 
both  in  Washington  and  Oregon;  in  the  former  near 
to  Fort  Walla  Walla,  and  in  the  latter,  in  the  desert 


1 62  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

east  of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  The  basin  of  an 
ancient  lake,  originally  discovered  by  Governor 
Whitaker  of  Oregon,  was  found  strewn  with  the 
bones  of  llamas,  elephants,  horses,  sloths,  and  smaller 
animals,  with  birds,  and  all  were  collected  by  Mr. 
Sternberg  and  safely  forwarded  to  Philadelphia.  I 
examined  this  locality  myself  in  1879  and  obtained 
further  remains  of  extinct  and  recent  species  of 
mammalia  found  mingled  with  numerous  worked 
flints." 

The  reader  will  notice  that  Cope  puts  my  expedi- 
tion in  '78  instead  of  '77  and  that  Dr.  Shufeldt  gives 
Cope's  visit  to  Fossil  Lake  as  before  mine,  when,  in 
reality,  it  was  two  years  later. 

On  p.  420  of  his  memoir,  Dr.  Shufeldt  writes: 
"  We  must  believe  that  it  still  remains  problematical 
whether  man  was  there,  and  further  comparative 
search  is  demanded  to  decide  whence  came,  and  at 
what  time,  those  stone  implements  of  human  manu- 
facture, commingled  as  they  are  with  the  bones  of 
the  animals,  many  of  which  are  long  since  extinct." 
And  Professor  Cope  says  on  the  same  subject: 
"  Scattered  everywhere  in  the  deposit  were  obsidian 
implements  of  human  manufacture.  Some  of  these 
were  of  inferior  workmanship,  and  many  of  them 
covered  with  a  patin  of  no  great  thickness,  which 
completely  replaced  the  luster  of  the  surface.  Other 
specimens  were  bright  as  when  first  made.  The 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert       163 

abundance  of  these  flints  was  remarkable,  and  sug- 
gested that  they  may  have  been  shot  at  the  game, 
both  winged  and  otherwise,  that  in  former  times 
frequented  the  lake." 

After  I  had  written  the  letter  already  mentioned, 
having  carefully  gone  over  all  the  ground  in  the 
vicinity  of  Fossil  Lake,  and  longing  for  new  worlds 
to  conquer,  I  started  out  one  day  on  my  pony 
through  the  desert,  hoping  to  find  another  locality  in 
which  the  wind  had  uncovered  a  fossil  bed.  I  spent 
the  greater  part  of  the  day  in  fruitless  search,  and 
was  about  to  return  home  when  I  was  attracted  by 
the  top  of  a  dead  spruce  tree  sticking  out  of  a  sand- 
hill. The  rest  of  the  tree  had  been  completely  buried 
by  the  sand. 

My  curiosity  was  aroused,  and  I  climbed  to  the 
top  of  the  hill  to  examine  the  spruce.  When  I 
reached  the  top,  however,  I  found  myself  looking 
down  into  a  pleasant  little  valley,  which  had  been 
scooped  out  by  the  wind,  and,  descending,  I  dis- 
covered that  I  had  stumbled  upon  the  former  site  of 
an  Indian  village.  Places  near  where  the  lodges 
had  stood  were  marked  by  piles  of  the  bleached 
bones  of  existing  species  of  antelope,  deer,  rabbits, 
etc.  None  of  these  bones  were  petrified  like  those 
at  Fossil  Lake. 

Near  the  site  of  each  lodge  stood  a  large  mortar, 
made  of  volcanic  rock,  with  a  pestle  lying  in  it. 


164          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

They  had  probably  been  used  by  the  squaws  for 
grinding  up  acorns  and  other  materials  for  bread- 
making.  Doubtless  a  storm  of  sand  had  forced  the 
villagers  to  flee  for  their  lives  without  giving  them 
time  to  save  even  these  valuable  mortars. 

I  found  a  spring  of  cold  water  which  had  built 
up  a  mound  of  white  sand,  and  from  the  side  of  a 
sandhill  I  pulled  out  the  back  part  of  a  human  skull. 
I  could  not  tell  how  large  the  village  had  been,  as  it 
extended  into  the  sandhill. 

I  soon  found  where  the  ancient  arrow-maker  had 
had  his  shop  by  the  great  quantities  of  cast-off 
obsidian  chips  that  covered  the  ground,  as  well  as 
by  the  broken  and  perfect  arrow-heads  and  spear- 
points,  beautifully  polished  and  finished,  and  the 
knives,  drills,  and  the  like  that  lay  about.  I  did  not 
find  a  vestige  of  anything  made  of  iron. 

Having  secured  a  number  of  the  obsidian  points, 
which  I  afterwards  sent  to  Cope,  I  started  for  camp; 
but  I  had  delayed  too  long,  and  night  overtook  me 
before  I  reached  home.  My  pony  and  I  came  near 
being  lost  in  the  desert.  I  gave  him  the  lines,  but  I 
was  much  worried  at  not  seeing  the  welcome  glow 
of  the  camp  fire,  when  I  had  thought  that  I  must  be 
near  my  tent.  Finally  I  shouted,  and  at  last  heard 
a  faint  answer.  But  even  then,  owing  to  my  deaf 
ear,  I  could  not  locate  the  camp,  and  had  to  wait 
until  George  came  up  and  piloted  me  in. 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      165 

Now  without  doubt  the  arrow-heads  and  spear- 
points  mingled  with  the  bones  at  Fossil  Lake  are  of 
the  same  manufacture  as  those  which  I  found  at  this 
Indian  village,  although  the  latter  are  not  so  much 
weathered,  having  evidently  been  recently  covered 
with  sand.  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  imple- 
ments mingled  with  the  bones  are  no  older  than  the 
village,  perhaps  a  hundred  years  old.  They  were 
probably  shot  by  the  Indians  of  the  village  at  the 
wild  animals  which  doubtless  came  in  great  numbers 
to  the  lake  to  drink.  Then  some  powerful  wind, 
like  that  which  covered  the  village,  drifted  away  the 
sand  that  lay  over  the  fossil  bones,  and  the  flints, 
being  too  heavy  to  be  carried  away  with  the  sand, 
dropped  down  and  mingled  with  the  bones.  This 
seems  to  me  the  only  possible  explanation.  And  I 
am  glad  to  say  that  so  high  an  authority  as  Pro- 
fessor J.  C.  Merriam  of  the  University  of  California, 
after  the  most  careful  study  and  explorations,  agrees 
with  me  in  this.  He  has  recently  been  over  the 
Fossil  Lake  region,  and  he  assures  me  that  it  is  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  human  implements 
found  there  were  contemporary  with  the  extinct 
animals  of  the  Equus  Beds. 

Whenever  George  and  I  had  collected  a  load  of 
fossils,  we  took  them  in  to  Button's  ranch.  One 
day  we  were  late  in  starting,  and  realized  that  we 
should  have  to  hurry  to  reach  the  ranch  before  dark. 


1 66  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

As  so  often  happens,  this  was  the  very  occasion  upon 
which  we  were  fated  to  be  delayed. 

At  a  certain  place  on  our  route,  we  had  to  pass 
some  mud  springs,  circular  wells  filled  to  the  brim 
with  thick,  yellowish  mud  of  the  consistency  of 
mortar.  In  wet  weather  they  continually  boiled  up 
without  overflowing,  but  to-day  they  were  covered 
with  a  hard  coating  of  dry  mud,  cracked  deeply  in 
all  directions. 

I  called  to  George,  who  was  driving  the  pack 
horse,  to  watch  him  and  see  that  he  did  not  jump 
into  the  spring  that  we  were  just  passing;  but  the 
words  were  hardly  out  of  my  mouth  when  the  miser- 
able wretch  made  a  running  jump,  and  landing  in 
the  middle  of  the  crust,  broke  through  and  went 
down  into  the  thick,  nasty  mud.  As  he  was  going 
down,  he  seemed  to  realize  what  he  had  done,  and 
managed  to  get  his  front  feet  over  the  rim  of  solid 
earth.  And  there  he  hung,  the  broad  pack — we 
had  brought  along  our  tent  and  blankets — helping 
to  buoy  him  up. 

We  sprang  from  our  horses,  and  made  a  rush  to 
save  our  precious  fossils,  beside  which  everything 
else,  including  the  mischievous  pony,  was  of  no  ac- 
count. We  had  to  cut  the  ropes  that  bound  the  fos- 
sils and  camp  outfit  to  the  animal,  and  when  we  had 
them  safe  on  solid  ground,  tie  a  rope  around  his 
neck  and  pull  him  out.  Of  course  he  was  thoroughly 


Expedition  to  Oregon  Desert      167 

frightened,  and  did  everything  in  his  power  to  help 
us.  Such  a  looking  horse  you  never  saw  as  he  was 
when  we  got  him  out.  His  whole  body  was  covered 
with  a  coat  of  sticky,  yellow  mud,  which  we  could 
not  scrape  off.  We  had  to  take  him  into  a  creek 
and  give  him  such  a  scrubbing  as,  I  think,  no 
member  of  the  genus  Equus  ever  had  before  or 
since. 

All  this  took  time,  and  it  was  late  at  night  before 
we  reached  the  ranch.  It  was  our  habit,  when  we 
got  to  the  cabin  and  felt  that  it  would  be  too  much 
trouble  to  open  our  pack  and  get  out  our  own  sup- 
plies, to  help  ourselves  from  Mr.  Button's  store. 
So,  after  we  had  put  the  horses  in  the  barn  and 
given  them  a  liberal  feed  of  oats  and  plenty  of  hay, 
we  went  into  the  larder  to  get  something  for  our 
own  supper,  for  by  that  time  we  were  pretty 
hungry. 

After  supper  I  lay  down  on  the  absent  lord's 
blankets,  and  was  smoking  the  pipe  of  peace,  when 
a  knock  was  heard  at  the  door.  It  surprised  me,  as 
it  was  the  custom  of  the  country  to  walk  in  without 
the  formality  of  knocking.  I  shouted,  "  Come  in !  " 
and  a  short,  heavy-set  man  entered.  He  said  that 
he  had  been  overtaken  by  night,  and  as  both  he 
and  his  team  were  in  need  of  food,  rest,  and  shel- 
ter, he  wanted  to  know  whether  we  would  take 
him  in. 


1 68  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

"  Why,  certainly,"  I  answered.  I  have  noticed 
that  most  men  are  liberal  with  other  men's  property. 
"  I  don't  own  the  ranch,  but  we  have  just  put  our 
horses  in  the  barn,  where  there  is  plenty  of  hay  and 
oats,  and  there  is  plenty  of  food  here.  George  will 
show  you  the  way  to  the  barn  and  help  you 
unhitch,  and  I  will  have  supper  ready  when  you 
return." 

He  thanked  me,  and  while  they  were  putting  up 
the  team,  I  got  a  hot  supper  with  materials  from 
Mr.  Button's  larder.  This  meal  was  greatly  relished 
by  our  midnight  guest. 

I  returned  to  the  bed  and  my  pipe,  and  was  enter- 
ing into  a  lively  conversation  with  the  stranger, 
when  the  thought  suddenly  flashed  into  my  head, 
What  if  this  man  owns  the  ranch?  I  sprang  from 
the  bed  on  the  instant,  and  fired  pointblank  the 
question,  "  Do  you  know  Lee  Button?  " 

"  Yes,  I've  seen  him,"  was  the  answer. 

"  That's  your  name,  isn't  it?  "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  stranger,  and  I  felt  so  cheap  that 
I  would  have  sold  out  for  nothing.  But  this  was 
Mr.  Button's  chance  to  show  what  sort  of  a  man  he 
was,  and  when  I  apologized  for  the  freedom  with 
which  we  had  made  ourselves  at  home  in  his  house 
and  used  his  goods,  he  told  me  that  we  had  done 
exactly  right,  and  that  he  would  have  felt  hurt  if 
we  had  acted  otherwise. 


Expedition  to   Oregon   Desert      169 

He  became  a  true  friend  and  helper,  and  his  log 
cabin  proved  a  valuable  place  of  shelter  for  my  party 
during  some  of  the  cold  October  nights.  If  these 
lines  should  ever  reach  his  eyes,  they  carry  to  him 
my  cordial  thanks  for  his  hospitality. 


CHAPTER  VII 

EXPEDITION  TO  THE  JOHN  DAY  RIVER 

IN  1878 


URING  the  winter  i 877^78  I  camped  on 
Pine  Creek,  Washington,  exploring  the 
swamps  in  the  neighborhood  and  fighting 
against  water  to  secure  specimens.  We 
had  dug  a  large  shaft  down  to  the  bed  of  gravel, 
twelve  feet  below  the  surface,  in  which  bones  were 
to  be  found,  but  every  morning  we  found  that  the 
hole  had  filled  with  mud  and  water  over  night,  and 
we  had  to  spend  hours  bailing  it  out.  When  we 
finally  got  it  clear  again,  we  had  little  time  or 
strength  left  for  securing  fossils.  This  perform- 
ance had  to  be  repeated  day  after  day,  and  of  course 
the  farther  we  excavated,  the  more  water  there  was 
to  be  bailed  out.  I  don't  think  that  we  were 
dry  a  single  day  that  winter.  But  luckily  the 
water  was  warm,  and  we  did  not  suffer  from 
colds. 

On  the  twenty-third  of  April  I  started  with  a 
team  and  wagon  from  Fort  Walla  Walla,  ac- 
companied by  my  two  assistants,  Joe  Huff  and 

170 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      171 

"  Jake "  Wortman,  the  latter  at  that  time  an  in- 
telligent young  man  from  Oregon,  who  had  been  in- 
troduced to  me  the  winter  before  by  my  brother, 
Surgeon  George  M.  Sternberg,  at  that  time  post 
surgeon  of  Fort  Walla  Walla.  During  the  past 
six  months  Wortman  had  been  my  guest  at  my  camp 
on  Pine  Creek.  Afterwards  he  became  known  to 
science  as  Dr.  J.  L.  Wortman. 

We  skirted  the  Blue  Mountains  in  a  southwesterly 
direction,  traveling  through  the  beautiful  wheat- 
fields  of  that  fertile  region;  and  striking  south  at 
Cayuse  Station  on  the  Umatilla  Reserve,  we  climbed 
the  long  slopes  of  the  mountains  and  plunged  down 
into  the  Grande  Rounde,  once  the  bed  of  an  ancient 
lake,  but  now  a  lovely  valley  nestling  among  the 
hills.  From  this  point  we  drove  south  to  Baker 
City,  and  leaving  behind  us  the  jagged  peaks  of  the 
Powder  River  Mountains,  struck  the  John  Day 
River  at  Canyon  City. 

On  the  second  of  May  we  camped  on  the  other 
side  of  the  mountains  in  a  large  meadow.  The  boys 
went  hunting  and  got  a  deer.  On  the  third,  our 
road  led  us  again  through  rugged  mountains, 
covered  in  places  with  ice,  and  we  had  to  cut  foot- 
holds for  our  horses,  as  they  were  smooth-shod. 
We  passed  through  a  large  mining  gulch,  where 
men  were  at  work  placer-digging  for  gold.  The 
whole  surface  of  the  country  had  been  dug  over, 


172  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

and  was  disfigured  with  holes  and  ditches  and  heaps 
of  earth. 

On  the  fifth  of  May,  after  passing  through  Can- 
yon City,  we  started  for  the  John  Day  Basin.  It 
snowed  nearly  all  day.  On  the  road  we  met  a  man 
who  told  us  of  a  rich  fossil  leaf  locality,  on  the  Van 
Horn  ranch;  and  after  a  sixteen-mile  drive  we  found 
the  place  and  secured  some  very  fine  specimens. 
The  leaf  impressions  were  found  in  a  soft,  shaly 
clay-stone,  and  were  very  abundant,  representing 
well-preserved  Tertiary  flora.  That  night  we 
feasted  on  a  large  salmon  trout  which  I  caught  in  an 
irrigation  ditch. 

On  the  sixth  (I  am  following  my  notebook)  we 
worked  all  day.  I  collected  two  hundred  specimens, 
and  Mr.  Wortman  eighty-five.  They  were  all  very 
fine,  and  represented  the  oak,  the  maple,  and  other 
species.  I  secured  some  fish  vertebrae  also.  This 
is  another  case  in  which  I  lost  credit  for  early  dis- 
coveries. I  was  told  by  Professor  Cope,  a  few 
years  before  his  death,  that  these  specimens  had 
never  been  examined. 

In  this  same  locality  there  is  a  bed  of  rock  so  light 
that  it  floats.  I  threw  a  large  mass  of  it  at  some 
object  in  the  water,  and  was  amazed  to  see  it  float 
off  down  the  stream.  It  was  the  first  time  that  I 
had  ever  seen  a  rock  lighter  than  water. 

On  the  seventh  of  May,  after  a  journey  of  fifteen 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      173 

days  from  Walla  Walla,  we  reached  Dayville,  a  mile 
below  the  crossing  of  the  South  Fork  of  the  John 
Day  River.  One  of  the  first  men  I  met  was  a  cer- 
tain Bill  Day,  whom  I  soon  after  hired  as  assistant. 
He  had  for  years  been  making  collections  of  the 
fossil  vertebrates  here,  usually  sending  them  to 
Professor  Marsh.  I  was  able  to  secure  a  large  and 
fine  collection  from  him  and  another  mountain  man, 
a  Mr.  Warfield,  who  had  also  spent  much  time  col- 
lecting fossils.  Both  men  had  been  employed  by 
Professor  Marsh  during  his  expedition  in  this 
region,  and  were  very  careful  workmen. 

We  camped  on  Cottonwood  Creek  and  prepared 
to  pack  into  the  Basin,  or  Cove  as  it  has  been  called. 
For  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  its  course,  the  John 
Day  flows  east,  skirting  the  Blue  Mountains,  but 
here  at  Cottonwood  or  Dayville,  it  has  turned  north 
and  cut  a  great  canyon,  four  thousand  feet  deep, 
through  the  heart  of  the  mountains,  the  so-calle'd 
Grande  Coulee,  since  known  as  the  Picture  Gorge. 
At  the  foot  of  this  canyon,  the  mountains  swing 
away  from  the  river  in  a  great  horseshoe  bend,  clos- 
ing in  upon  it  again  several  miles  below.  This 
amphitheater,  three  miles  wide  and  thirteen  long, 
is  a  scene  of  surprising  beauty.  The  brilliantly 
colored  clays  and  volcanic  ash-beds  of  the  Miocene 
of  the  John  Day  horizon  paint  the  landscape  with 
green  and  yellow  and  orange  and  other  glowing 


1/4          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

shades,  while  in  the  background,  towering  upward 
for  two  thousand  feet,  rise  rows  upon  rows  of 
mighty  basaltic  columns,  eight-sided  prisms,  each 
row  standing  a  little  back  of  the  one  just  below,  and 
the  last  crowned  with  evergreen  forests  of  pine  and 
fir  and  spruce.  But  no  pen  can  picture  the  glorious 
panorama. 

Ever  since  Cretaceous  times,  when  a  quiet  inland 
sea  laid  down  the  thousand  feet  of  Kansas  chalk, 
here  in  the  John  Day  region  vulcanism  has  held 
sway;  almost  until  to-day.  Indeed  I  have  often 
seen  the  summit  of  old  Mount  Hood  wreathed  with 
menacing  clouds  of  smoke,  as  if  she  were  preparing 
to  pour  forth  again  her  floods  of  molten  lava  and 
devastate  the  region. 

When  volcanic  action  first  began,  great  masses  of 
ashes  must  have  been  thrown  out  over  the  country, 
settling  in  the  lakes  and  covering  the  remains  of 
animals  which  had  been  accumulating  there  for  ages. 
Then  floods  of  lava,  one  after  another,  poured  out 
over  the  forests,  until  they  lay  buried  beneath  two 
thousand  feet  of  volcanic  rock.  Where  did  this 
immense  mass  of  molten  rock  come  from,  and  how  ? 
A  dike  crosses  the  Basin,  and  for  fifteen  miles  the 
basaltic  columns  lie  along  its  edges  like  cordwood; 
so  we  know  that  some  of  the  lava  at  least  was 
squeezed  up  out  of  the  earth's  crust  through  narrow 
cracks. 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      175 

I  remember  once,  as  I  was  standing  with  Uncle 
Johnnie  Kirk,  the  hermit  of  the  Cove,  in  front  of  his 
cabin,  he  pointed  to  the  basaltic  cliffs  that  towered 
above  us,  and  observed  gravely,  "  All  vegetable 
matter. "  He  had  found  at  the  base  remains  of  the 
forests  which  the  lava  had  engulfed,  and  had  con- 
cluded that  the  whole  mass  represented  similar 
remains. 

Before  moving  the  outfit  into  the  fossil  beds  I 
took  my  pony  and  started  off  to  spy  out  the  land. 
Following  a  horse  trail  that  led  up  the  gentle  slope 
west  of  the  canyon  represented  in  Dr.  Merriam's 
picture  of  the  Mascall  Beds  I  reached  a  tableland, 
which  proved  to  be  the  divide  between  Cottonwood 
and  Birch  creeks.  Here  I  found  that  the  trail  lead- 
ing down  to  the  mouth  of  Birch  Creek  was  very 
steep — one  could  have  greased  one's  boots  and  slid 
the  whole  distance  of  several  hundred  feet.  I  was 
afraid  to  ride  down  and  led  my  pony,  but  I  soon 
learned  that  an  Oregon  pony  has  long,  well-de- 
veloped legs  and  can  climb  up  and  down  better  than 
I  could  myself. 

When  I  reached  the  river  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Grande  Coulee,  I  found  to  my  dismay  that  all  the 
rich-looking  green  and  brown  fossil  beds  were  on 
the  other  side,  where  the  amphitheater  which  I  have 
mentioned  is  cut  out  of  the  flank  of  the  mountains. 
rAs  a  boy  I  had  learned  to  swim  dog-fashion,  and  as 


176          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

the  river  was  not  over  thirty  or  forty  feet  wide,  and 
I  was  determined,  after  coming  so  far,  to  find  some 
fossils  and  a  good  camping  ground,  I  decided  to 
strip,  jump  out  as  far  as  I  could,  and  paddle  the  rest 
of  the  way  across. 

No  sooner  thought  than  done.  In  I  sprang,  dis- 
covering too  late  that  I  had  reckoned  without  my 
host  and  that  the  river,  which  had  been  penned  in 
for  miles  by  the  walls  of  the  canyon,  was  here  flow- 
ing away  from  its  prison  with  amazing  swiftness 
and  power.  My  weak  little  body  was  as  helpless  as 
a  straw  in  its  grasp:  down  I  went,  and  striking  a 
boulder  at  the  bottom,  was  flung  up  five  feet  into  the 
air,  I  took  in  breath  and  closed  my  mouth  as  I  went 
down  again;  tossing  me  hither  and  thither  like  a 
cork,  beating  me  against  rocks  and  hurling  me  high 
into  the  air,  the  river  bore  me  swiftly  on,  until  at 
last,  thank  God !  it  tired  of  its  toy,  and  threw  me  to 
one  side  into  deep  water,  under  a  willow  whose  wel- 
coming branches  I  eagerly  clasped.  There  I  hung 
until  I  had  regained  my  strength  enough  to  pull  my- 
self out. 

But  the  fossil  vertebrates  of  the  John  Day  beds 
were  still  across  the  river  and  the  questions  which  I 
had  crossed  the  mountain  and  risked  my  life  to 
answer  were  still  waiting  for  replies.  Unwilling  to 
return  home  beaten  I  walked  up  and  down  the  river 
shore,  and  was  delighted  to  find  an  old  boat  caught 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      177 

in  a  pile  of  driftwood.  I  dug  it  out  with  my  bare 
hands,  only  to  find  that  its  seams  had  parted  and  that 
its  bottom  was  as  full  of  holes  as  a  sieve.  Not  dis- 
mayed, I  found  a  bed  of  sticky  clay  with  which  I 
calked  my  ship,  and  venturing  again  into  the  flood, 
managed  to  get  to  the  other  shore  before  the  boat 
sank. 

I  found  a  place  to  camp  lower  down,  at  the  mouth 
of  a  canyon  which  opened  out  into  the  level  country, 
and  on  a  little  creek  that  ran  in  front  of  Uncle 
Johnnie's  cabin.  I  was  very  well  pleased  with  my 
explorations  in  the  fossil  beds  also,  for  I  found  the 
skull  of  an  Oreodon,  a  hog-like  creature  which, 
judging  from  the  abundance  of  skulls  and  skeletons, 
must  have  lived  in  droves  during  the  time  when  this 
rock  was  being  deposited  in  the  lakes  of  this  region. 
These  animals  were  herbivorous  in  habit.  Uncle 
Johnnie  always  referred  to  them  as  bears.  He  often 
brought  a  skull  into  camp  with  the  remark,  "  Here's 
another  bar's  head.  I've  killed  hundreds  of  'em  in 
ole  Virginia." 

I  returned  to  camp  much  elated,  and  was  planning 
to  pack  the  outfit  into  the  Basin  the  next  day,  when 
to  my  disgust  Joe  Huff,  who  owned  the  horses,  re- 
fused to  pack  them,  as  he  did  not  want  to  run  the  risk 
of  injuring  them.  It  was  useless  to  tell  him  that  he 
had  been  hired  to  do  what  I  wanted,  etc. ;  he  was  not 
to  be  moved.  So  I  paid  him  off,  and  saw  him  start 


178          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

for  his  home  near  Moscow,  Idaho,  riding  bareback. 
I  felt  sorry  for  him,  but  he  had  a  stubborn  fit  on, 
and  there  was  no  doing  anything  with  him.  After 
I  had  hired  Bill  Day,  he  wanted  me  to  overlook  the 
past  and  re-employ  him,  but  it  was  too  late  then. 

I  suppose  Bill  Day  must  have  weighed  about  a 
hundred  and  eighty  pounds,  but  he  was  an  expert 
hunter  and  a  keen  observer.  He  owned  a  herd  of 
ponies  and  furnished  me  with  all  that  I  wanted,  and 
as  he  knew  every  inch  of  the  fossil  beds  and  all  the 
best  camping  grounds,  his  services  were  invaluable. 
He  kept  our  larder  supplied  with  venison,  also.  I 
think  my  success  in  that  region  was  largely  due  to 
his  assistance.  I  was  also  indebted  to  a  Mr.  Mascall, 
a  man  who  lived  on  the  second  bottom  of  the  river. 
He  had  an  extra  log  cabin  behind  the  one  he  lived  in, 
and  he  let  us  use  it  as  a  storeroom  for  our  extra 
supplies  of  food  and  for  our  fossils,  when  we  began 
to  secure  them. 

This  Mr.  Mascall  had  a  wife  and  daughter,  and 
when  we  came  in  from  the  fossil  beds,  after  several 
weeks  of  camping  out,  it  seemed  almost  like  coming 
home  to  be  able  to  put  our  feet  under  a  table,  eat  off 
stone  dishes,  and  drink  our  coffee  out  of  a  china 
cup,  and  to  sleep  on  a  feather  bed  instead  of  a  hard 
mattress  and  roll  of  blankets.  Then  Mr.  Mascall 
was  a  good  gardener,  and  always  had  fresh  vege- 
tables, a  most  enjoyable  change  from  hot  bread, 


FIG.  26.— SKULL  AND  TUSKS  OF  IMPERIAL  MAMMOTH,  Elephas  imperator. 
In  American  Museum  of  Natural  History. 


FIG.  27. — FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.     (After  Merriam.)     Upper  John  Day 

exposure. 


FIG.  28. — FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.     (After  Merriam.) 

exposure. 


Middle  John  Day 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      179 

bacon,  and  coffee,  I  shall  not  soon  forget  his 
hospitality. 

When  all  was  ready,  we  were  taken  across  the 
river  in  Mr.  Mascall's  boat,  swimming  our  horses. 
Then  the  packs  were  adjusted,  and  the  wearisome 
climb  up  the  face  of  the  mountains  began.  It  usu- 
ally took  us  half  a  day  to  reach  the  summit.  Then 
we  climbed  down  steep  slopes  and  over  spurs  of  the 
hills,  until  we  reached  Uncle  Johnnie  Kirk's  hospi- 
table cabin,  a  12  x  14  structure  of  rough  logs  with  a 
shake  roof.  He  kept  bachelor's  hall  and  lived  all 
alone,  except  when  some  cowman  or  fossil  hunter 
came  along.  We  pitched  our  tent  near  his  house. 

Not  far  away  there  was  a  tract  of  bad  lands, 
called  the  Cone,  the  largest  in  the  John  Day  Basin, 
covering,  I  should  judge,  a  section  of  land.  It  was 
cut  into  the  usual  fantastic  forms,  peaks,  ridges,  and 
battlements,  and  slender  spires  sometimes  a  hundred 
feet  high,  and  as  thickly  clustered  as  those  of  some 
old  Gothic  cathedral.  Their  summits  were  crowned 
with  hard  concretions,  which  protected  their  almost 
perpendicular  sides  from  destruction  by  the  ele- 
ments. 

The  drainage  canals  spread  out  through  this  ter- 
ritory like  the  ribs  of  a  fan,  converging  at  the  en- 
trance, and  woe  to  the  man  who  chanced  to  be 
caught  in  one  of  them  during  a  rain,  for  the  steep 
slopes  shot  the  water  down  into  them  with  such 


180          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

amazing  rapidity  that  before  he  could  turn  around 
he  would  be  engulfed  in  fathoms  of  water.  We 
always  climbed  up  to  some  high  point  the  minute 
we  heard  the  rain  strike  the  rocks  above  us,  and 
waited  until  the  storm  was  over  and  the  water  had 
run  out.  A  ditch  containing  twenty  feet,  some- 
times, of  water  would  dry  up  as  soon  as  it  stopped 
raining,  so  steep  was  the  slope  of  its  bed. 

I  was  continually  impressed  in  this  region  by  the 
power  of  running  water.  Not  only  is  this  mani- 
fested in  the  mighty  canyons  which  have  been 
carved  out  during  the  course  of  ages  from  the  solid 
rock,  but  I  stood  transfixed  with  astonishment  once, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  little  creek  in  front  of  Uncle 
Johnnie's  cabin,  on  finding  it  dammed  by  a  mass  of 
basaltic  rock,  weighing  at  least  twenty  tons,  which 
had  been  brought  from  its  native  hills,  three  miles 
away,  by  a  flood  of  water,  and  left  stranded  here. 
All  the  side  canyons  that  empty  into  the  John  Day 
River  have  dumped  their  loads  of  boulders  there,  in 
some  places  damming  the  stream  or  creating  a  series 
of  rapids. 

I  soon  found  that  all  the  ground  in  the  fossil  beds 
which  was  easy  to  get  at  had  been  gone  over.  Here 
and  there  we  would  run  across  a  pile  of  broken 
bones  and  a  hole  from  which  a  skull  had  been  taken. 
When  I  asked  Bill  what  he  had  meant  by  leaving 
the  bones  of  the  skeleton  behind,  he  answered,  "  We 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      1 8 1 

were  only  looking  for  heads,  though  we  sometimes 
saved  knucks  and  jints."  This  accounts  for  the 
scarcity  of  skeletons  among  the  first  collections 
made.  I  saw  to  it  that  my  party  should  care  for 
every  bone  discovered. 

I  realized  then,  that  if  we  were  to  make  our  ex- 
pedition a  success,  we  should  have  to  climb  where 
no  one  before  us  had  dared  to  go.  It  was  a  serious 
matter  to  scale  those  almost  perpendicular  heights; 
one  took  one's  life  in  one's  hand  in  attempting  it. 
They  were,  of  course,  entirely  bare  of  vegetation, 
and  where  the  slope  was  not  too  steep,  they  were 
covered  with  angular  fragments  of  rock  which 
rolled  from  under  one's  feet  and  were  likely  to 
send  one  flying  into  the  gorge  below.  But  I  laid 
the  situation  before  my  two  men,  explaining  to  them 
that  unless  they  were  willing  to  face  the  danger,  we 
should  have  to  give  up  the  expedition,  as  we  had 
explored  the  safe  ground  without  results;  and  they 
courageously  agreed  to  follow  where  I  led. 

So  every  morning  we  started  out  for  a  day  of 
perilous  enterprise,  each  with  a  collecting  bag  over 
his  shoulder  and  a  well-made  pick  in  hand.  The 
latter  was  used  not  only  for  digging  out  fossils,  but 
was  absolutely  indispensable  as  an  aid  in  climbing, 
and  as  an  anchor  in  case  we  began  to  slip.  We 
were  never  sure  when  we  left  camp  in  the  morning 
that  we  should  all  meet  there  at  night,  since  a  single 


1 82  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

misstep  on  those  cliffs  would  mean  death  or  worse 
than  death  on  the  pitiless  rocks  below ;  but  every  day 
we  gained  confidence  and  grew  more  skilful  in  the 
use  of  our  picks. 

Far  above  the  pick-marks  of  the  fossil  hunters 
who  had  preceded  us,  far  above  the  signs  of  the 
mountain  sheep  that  inhabited  these  wilds,  we  made 
our  way,  cutting  niches  for  our  feet  as  high  above 
us  as  we  could  reach,  and  drawing  ourselves  up  with 
bodies  pressed  to  the  rock.  At  each  niche  we  rested, 
and  scanned  the  face  of  the  cliff  for  the  point  of  a 
tooth  or  the  end  of  a  bone,  or  for  one  of  those  con- 
cretions, among  the  thousands  that  everywhere 
topped  the  pinnacles  or  projected  from  the  rocky 
slopes,  whose  skull-shaped  form  revealed  the  treas- 
ure that  was  hidden  away  within.  When  a  fossil 
was  found  we  first  cut  out  of  the  face  of  the  cliff  a 
place  large  enough  to  stand  upon,  and  then  carved 
out  the  specimen. 

I  could  tell  of  a  hundred  narrow  escapes  from 
death.  One  day  I  was  standing  on  a  couple  of  ob- 
long concretions,  about  a  foot  in  length,  with  a 
chasm,  fifty  feet  deep  and  three  or  four  feet  wide, 
immediately  in  front  of  me.  After  I  had  searched 
carefully  the  surface  of  all  the  rocks  in  sight,  I 
started  to  jump  over  to  a  narrow  ledge  on  the  other 
side  of  the  gorge.  Suddenly  both  concretions  flew 
from  under  my  feet,  and  I  was  plunging  head  down- 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      183 

ward  into  the  gorge  when  by  a  violent  struggle  in 
mid-air  I  managed  to  throw  my  elbows  on  the 
ledge;  and  I  hung  there  until  I  could  find  a  foot- 
hold and  pull  myself  out  onto  solid  rock. 

Another  time  I  was  climbing  a  steep  slope  which 
was  capped  by  a  perpendicular  ledge.  I  thought, 
however,  that  I  could  climb  over  it  to  the  top  of  a 
ridge  that  ran  back  into  the  hills,  where  I  could  find 
a  way  down.  For  understand,  we  could  never  go 
back  the  way  we  had  come,  as  we  could  not  relax 
our  muscles  sufficiently  to  enable  us  to  find  with  the 
tips  of  our  toes  the  niches  by  which  we  had  climbed 
up.  So  we  had  to  be  sure  that  we  could  get  to  the 
top  and  find  a  way  down  from  there.  On  this  oc- 
casion I  was  so  busy  searching  the  face  of  the  rock 
for  fossils  that  I  worked  for  hours,  climbing  up 
niche  after  niche,  without  noticing  very  much  where 
I  was  going,  until  chancing  to  look  upward,  I  dis- 
covered that  an  escarpment  of  the  top  ledge  leaned 
over  the  slope  that  I  was  scaling,  rendering  it  im- 
possible for  me  to  reach  the  top.  I  fully  expected 
that  I  should  have  to  cut  out  a  place  to  sit  in  and 
wait  until  the  boys  missed  me  and  looked  for  me. 
They  could  then  reach  the  top  of  the  ledge  by  some 
other  way,  and  lower  a  rope  to  me.  But  I  was  de- 
lighted to  find  at  last  a  perpendicular  seam  in  the 
rocky  ledge,  which  proved  wide  enough  to  admit  my 
body.  So  I  climbed  to  the  top  as  a  man  climbs  a 


184          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

narrow  well,  with  my  back  braced  against  one  side 
and  my  feet  planted  against  the  other. 

But  such  experiences  as  these,  instead  of  making 
us  timid,  only  spurred  us  on  to  more  dangerous 
attempts.  To  show  how  reckless  we  became,  I  re- 
member that  once  Bill  found  a  skull  in  a  perpendic- 
ular cliff  of  solidified  volcanic  mud,  the  termination 
of  a  ridge  that  ran  far  back  into  the  hills.  The  skull 
was  located  about  twenty  feet  up  the  face  of  the 
cliff,  and  too  far  below  the  surface  of  the  ridge  to  be 
reached  from  above;  so  that  there  was  no  way  to 
get  at  it  but  by  scaling  the  cliff.  I  cut  niches  on  one 
side,  and  Bill  on  the  other,  and  we  climbed  up  until 
we  could  reach  the  specimen  with  our  picks,  cling- 
ing to  a  niche  with  one  hand  and  wielding  the  pick 
with  the  other.  I  worked  with  my  right  hand  and 
Bill  with  his  left. 

The  rock  was  very  hard,  and  it  took  a  long  while 
to  hew  out  the  specimen.  While  we  were  at  work, 
we  heard  a  mountain  sheep  bleating  for  her  young. 
By  reaching  up  we  could  get  our  hands  over  the 
edge  of  the  cliff,  and  pull  ourselves  up  so  that  we 
could  just  peek  over.  Sure  enough,  the  sheep  was 
coming  down  the  ridge  toward  us  in  great  excite- 
ment, rending  the  air  with  calls  for  her  lamb.  I 
began  to  imitate  the  bleat  of  her  offspring,  and  she 
increased  her  speed  toward  us  with  every  sign  of 
relief. 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      185 

"  What  if  she  should  butt  us  off  ?  "  I  said  to  Bill, 
and  the  position  we  were  in,  clinging  to  the  face  of 
the  rock  with  our  toes  and  fingers,  made  the  idea  so 
inexpressibly  funny  that  he  began  to  laugh,  louder 
and  louder  the  more  I  tried  to  hush  him  up.  When 
I  had  led  the  sheep  up  to  within  ten  feet  of  us,  she 
concluded  that  we  were  not  her  lost  lamb,  and  turn- 
ing like  a  flash,  started  on  a  run  for  the  mountains  a 
mile  away.  Out  of  a  side  canyon  came  the  lamb, 
and  fell  in  behind  its  mother;  and  we  could  see  the 
dirt  flying  out  behind  them  until  they  appeared  to  be 
about  the  size  of  a  rabbit  and  a  ground  squirrel. 

One  day  Bill  and  I  were  out  together  in  the  beds, 
and  when  we  got  back  to  dinner,  Jake  did  not  show 
up.  We  were  not  much  concerned  about  him,  as 
we  concluded  that  he  had  found  a  specimen  and  was 
digging  it  out;  but  when  we  came  in  at  night  and 
there  was  still  no  Jake,  we  made  up  our  minds  that 
he  had  either  fallen  and  killed  himself  or  that  he 
was  lying  in  some  gulch  with  a  broken  limb.  In 
great  anxiety  we  started  out  into  the  Bad  Lands  to 
find  him. 

It  was  a  dangerous  enough  expedition  in  the  day- 
time, but  doubly  so  at  night,  and  we  risked  our  lives 
many  times;  but  we  did  not  give  up  until  we  had 
made  the  desolate  region  ring  with  our  calls.  At 
last,  about  midnight,  with  fear  and  sorrow  in  our 
heart,  we  returned  to  camp.  By  the  moonlight  I 


1 86          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

saw  what  appeared  to  be  a  human  form  in  Jake's 
bed.  I  rushed  to  it  and  threw  off  the  blankets,  and 
there,  sleeping  peacefully,  lay  Jake.  We  had  a 
great  mind  to  take  him  out  into  the  Bad  Lands  and 
pitch  him  off  into  a  canyon.  It  seems  that  he  had 
been  to  the  mountains,  three  miles  away,  where  a 
small  exposure  of  the  John  Day  beds  could  be  seen 
from  camp ;  and  when  he  returned  and  we  were  not 
in,  he  had  not  worried  about  us,  but  had  eaten  his 
supper  and  gone  to  bed,  while  we  were  making 
ourselves  hoarse  shouting  for  him.  This  incident 
illustrates  a  peculiarity  of  youth — its  thoughtless- 
ness as  to  the  anxiety  which  it  may  be  causing  its 
elders. 

Among  the  fossil  remains  which  we  secured  in 
these  John  Day  beds,  were  the  limbs  of  a  huge 
Elotherium  humerosum,  so  named  by  Cope  on  ac- 
count of  the  great  process  on  the  humerus.  We 
found  the  specimen  in  Haystack  Valley,  lying  on 
its  side,  with  its  toes  sticking  out  of  the  face  of  a 
slope.  There  were  thousands  of  feet  of  volcanic 
rock  above  it.  Following  in  with  pick  and  shovel, 
we  cleaned  up  the  floor,  to  find,  when  we  reached  the 
center  of  the  humeri  and  femora,  that  they  had  been 
cut  through  as  smoothly  as  if  it  had  been  done  with 
a  diamond  saw.  I  knew,  of  course,  that  there  had 
been  a  fault  here,  and  that  the  earth  in  slipping 
down  had  severed  the  bones.  The  question  that  in- 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      187 

terested  me  was  which  side  had  gone  down  and  how 
far.  If  the  side  toward  the  open  valley,  then  the 
rest  of  the  skeleton  must  have  been  destroyed  by  the 
wash,  as  the  slope  above  the  bones  lay  at  an  angle  of 
45  degrees  to  the  floor  on  which  they  lay.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  mountain  side  had  gone  down,  and 
the  slip  had  not  been  too  great,  I  should  be  able  to 
find  the  rest  of  the  bones.  Inspired  by  this  hope, 
we  put  in  several  days  of  hard  work,  and  were  de- 
lighted to  find  the  severed  bones  three  feet  below 
the  original  level. 

What  a  shaking  and  trembling  of  the  earth's  crust 
there  must  have  been,  when  miles  of  the  mountain 
mass  slipped  down  three  feet  toward  the  center  of 
the  earth !  No  wonder  that  when  a  similar  fault  oc- 
curred at  San  Francisco,  the  puny  works  of  man 
fell  in  ruins.  The  bones  of  this  Elotherium  are 
now  on  exhibition  in  the  American  Museum,  which 
purchased  the  Cope  collection,  including  the  material 
that  I  secured  through  eight  seasons  in  the  field  in 
charge  of  his  expedition. 

I  had  found  in  the  Cottonwood  beds  that  lie  on 
top  of  the  John  Day  Miocene  the  cannon-bone,  or 
long  cylindrical  foot  bone,  of  a  large  camel.  As  I 
closely  studied  this  bone,  which  is  composed  of  op- 
posite halves,  separated  by  a  thin  septum  of  bone  in 
the  center,  with  a  medullary  canal  on  each  side,  the 
conviction  came  to  me  that  the  two  halves  had  once 


1 88          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

been  distinct,  like  the  metacarpals  and  metatarsals 
of  the  pig.  With  this  idea  in  mind,  I  was  con- 
stantly looking  for  a  camel  in  the  older  beds,  and  I 
cannot  express  my  delight  when  one  day,  as  I  was 
exploring  the  John  Day  beds,  I  came  across  a  skele- 
ton which  had  been  weathered  out  and  lay  in  bold 
relief  on  the  face  of  a  slope.  I  knew  before  I  picked 
up  the  cannon-bone  that  my  belief  was  verified,  and 
when  I  took  up  the  two  bones  separately,  the  fact 
was  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that  in  this  ancestor  of 
the  living  form  the  metacarpals  of  the  fore  foot  and 
the  metatarsals  of  the  hind  foot  were  respectively 
distinct.  As  the  species  represented  by  this  speci- 
men was  new  to  science,  Professor  Cope  named  it  in 
my  honor  Paratylopus  st  ember gi.  A  skull  of  this 
species  was  afterwards  found  by  Dr.  Wortman,  and 
both  specimens  are  now  on  exhibition  in  the 
American  Museum. 

I  arrived  at  this  conclusion  with  regard  to  the 
cannon-bone  of  the  ancient  camel  as  Darwin,  Marsh, 
and  Huxley  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the 
ancient  horse  had  three  toes.  They  recognized  that 
the  splint  bones  of  the  horse  represented  the  side  toes 
of  rhinoceroses,  one  on  each  side  of  the  middle 
metacarpals  and  metatarsals  respectively,  and  they 
decided  that  they  were  the  remnants  of  side  toes  in 
the  ancestor  of  the  horse.  And  later  we  also  found 
a  three-toed  horse. 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      189 

I  secured  also  in  these  beds  the  skull  of  a  peccary 
and  an  oreodont,  both  new,  and  used  as  the  types  of 
Cope's  description,  and  a  couple  of  carnivores;  one, 
called  by  Cope  Archcelurus  debilis,  about  the  size  of 
the  American  panther,  the  other  a  dog  about  the  size 
of  a  coyote.  Cope  gave  the  name  Enhydrocyon 
stenocephalus  to  this  genus  and  species.  A  splendid 
skull  of  the  rhinoceros  Diceratheriwn  nanum  Marsh, 
was  another  of  my  discoveries  here.  All  the 
specimens,  with  the  skull  of  a  rodent  from  the 
same  beds,  are  now  on  exhibition  in  the  American 
Museum. 

Of  course  these  are  but  a  few  of  the  many  speci- 
mens secured  in  these  beds;  hundreds  are  stored 
away  in  the  drawers  and  trays  of  the  Museum.  I 
was  told  that  it  would  cost  twenty-five  dollars  to  get 
a  typewritten  copy  of  the  list  of  John  Day  fossils  in 
the  Museum.  In  that  list  are  many  specimens  which 
my  party  secured  or  which  I  purchased  from  War- 
field  and  Day.  Professor  Cope  once  wrote  me  that 
my  collection  there  represented  about  fifty  species  of 
extinct  mammals. 

One  day  in  July  I  left  Jake  Wortman  in  the  field 
and  started  for  Dayville,  leading  a  pack  pony.  I 
intended  to  stay  all  night  with  Mr.  Mascall,  leave 
my  load  of  fossils,  and  take  back  a  load  of  pro- 
visions. Bill  Day  had  lost  one  of  the  horses,  and 
as  a  large  band  of  Umatilla  Indians  was  encamped 


1 90          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

on  Fox  Prairie  at  the  summit  of  the  mountains, 
about  six  miles  east  of  our  camp  in  the  Cove,  he  had 
gone  off  in  that  direction  to  look  for  it. 

When  I  reached  the  high  mountain  above  Day- 
ville,  I  could  look  down  into  the  narrow  valley  of 
the  John  Day.  Although  it  was  noon,  there  was 
no  smoke  rising  from  the  chimneys  of  the  houses. 
The  fields  of  wheat  were  ripe  for  the  cradle — they 
had  no  machines  in  that  region,  and  not  only  cradled 
their  grain,  but  threshed  it  with  horses,  who 
tramped  it  out — but  no  one  was  working  in  them, 
and  there  was  no  stock  in  the  pastures.  What  could 
it  mean?  I  asked  myself;  and  as  I  followed  the 
long  trail  down  to  the  river,  my  heart  was  full  of 
fearful  forebodings.  Had  a  pestilence  killed  all 
these  people  whom  I  knew  so  well  ?  Or  had  they  all 
fled,  with  their  horses  and  cattle,  from  Indians  on 
the  warpath? 

Without  expecting  to  hear  a  response,  I  called, 
when  I  reached  the  river,  for  Mr.  Mascall  to  come 
over  with  his  boat  and  take  me  across.  To  my  de- 
light, I  saw  him  come  out  of  his  house  and  take  the 
trail  down  to  the  boat  through  the  woods  that 
covered  the  first  river  bottom.  All  the  while  that  he 
was  unlocking  the  boat  and  rowing  across,  I  kept 
shouting,  "  What's  the  trouble?  Where  are  all  the 
people  ?  "  But  not  until  I  had  got  aboard  with  my 
pack  and  saddle,  and  we  had  started  back,  would  he 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      191 

answer  the  questions  which  I  had  been  asking  my- 
self ever  since  I  left  the  top  of  the  mountain. 

It  seems  that  three  hundred  Bannocks,  or  Snakes, 
under  their  chosen  leader,  Egan,  had  left  the  Mal- 
heur  Agency,  several  hundred  miles  south,  and  after 
stealing  six  thousand  horses,  mainly  from  the 
French  brothers'  ranch,  were  now  on  their  way 
north  to  join  Homely,  the  chief  of  the  Umatillas,  at 
Fox  Prairie.  General  Howard,  who  was  in  hot 
pursuit,  had  sent  a  courier  ahead  of  his  command  to 
the  settlers  in  the  John  Day  valley,  advising  them  to 
gather  at  some  central  locality,  build  a  stockade,  and 
take  their  women  and  children  into  it  for  protection 
from  the  treacherous  redskins.  Everyone  in  the 
valley,  except  Mr.  Mascall  and  an  old  man  who  kept 
the  mail  station  on  Cottonwood  Creek,  a  mile  to  the 
south,  had  taken  this  advice  and  gone  to  Spanish 
Gulch,  a  mining  town  on  top  of  the  mountains  about 
ten  miles  southwest. 

Near  sundown  Bill  Day  came  in,  having  heard  the 
news  at  the  Indian  camp.  He  instantly  insisted  that 
we  leave  everything  and  go  to  Spanish  Gulch.  It 
was  foolish,  he  said,  to  risk  our  lives  going  back  to 
warn  Jake.  On  the  long  trail  up  the  mountain  we 
should  be  in  full  sight  of  the  South  Fork,  down 
which  the  Indians  were  expected  to  come,  and  it 
would  take  us  half  a  day  to  climb  those  four  thou- 
sand feet  and  hide  ourselves  in  the  canyons  on  the 


192  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

other  side.  I  refused,  however,  to  be  moved  by  his 
arguments.  I  told  him  that  I  meant  to  go  back,  and 
that  he  was  to  go  with  me.  We  could  not  leave 
Jake  there  in  camp,  entirely  unconscious  of  the  fate 
that  might  be  approaching  him.  He  knew  nothing 
of  the  proximity  of  hostile  Indians,  and  it  was  our 
duty  to  warn  him. 

"  Well,"  Bill  said,  "  I  am  going  to  look  out  for 
number  one.  I  have  not  lost  any  Indians.  If  you 
have,  go  and  hunt  trouble.  Let  Jake  look  out  for 
himself." 

All  my  shells,  perhaps  three  hundred,  were  empty, 
but  I  had  plenty  of  powder  and  lead,  and  the  best 
long-range  rifle  I  had  ever  owned,  a  heavy  Sharp's 
weighing  fourteen  pounds,  and  shooting  a  hundred 
and  twenty  grains  of  lead  and  seventy  grains  of 
powder.  I  set  to  work  cleaning  and  oiling  it;  and 
then  spent  the  whole  night  in  front  of  the  fireplace, 
melting  lead,  casting  bullets,  and  loading  shells. 
Bill  also  stayed  awake,  and  with  his  needle-gun  kept 
guard  at  a  porthole  which  commanded  a  good  view 
of  the  open  ground  around  the  house. 

The  next  morning  I  started  alone  on  my  pony  to 
follow  the  trail  to  the  Cove,  where  Jake,  unconscious 
of  danger,  was  at  work  in  the  fossil  beds.  It  seemed 
an  interminable  journey,  and  I  thought  that  there 
was  an  ambuscade  behind  every  bush  and  pile  of 
rocks  that  guarded  the  road.  But,  greatly  relieved, 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      193 

I  got  out  of  sight  at  last  in  the  deep  canyons  on  the 
other  side,  and  soon  saw  Jake's  pony  near  a  fossil 
bed  and  found  Jake  himself  deeply  interested  in  a 
splendid  discovery  he  had  made. 

When  I  told  him  the  news,  he  wanted  to  drop 
everything  until  the  war  was  over,  and  fly  for  safety 
to  the  stockade.  But  no;  my  tent,  with  many  fine 
fossils  in  it,  was  in  an  open  valley  in  plain  sight  for 
miles,  and  would  quickly  attract  any  marauding 
hostile,  who  might  set  fire  to  it  and  destroy  the  work 
of  months.  I  insisted,  therefore,  upon  caching,  the 
Pacific  coast  term  for  hiding,  everything.  So  we 
took  down  the  tent,  and  putting  it,  with  the  fossils 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  outfit,  into  a  secret  place,  we 
covered  them  with  a  big  brush  pile.  Then  I  was 
ready  to  fly  as  fast  as  our  ponies  could  carry  us. 

When  we  reached  the  river,  Bill  was  still  with  Mr. 
Mascall,  and  brought  over  the  boat.  Then  both  men 
insisted  that  we  go  without  further  delay  to  the 
Gulch,  as  we  had  risked  our  lives  long  enough. 
But  there  was  a  large  collection  of  valuable  fossils 
in  the  log  house  behind  Mr.  Mascall's  cabin,  and  as 
the  specimens  were  wrapped  in  burlap,  they  would 
be  destroyed  if  the  Indians  burned  down  the  house, 
which  they  would  be  sure  to  do  if  they  came.  I  had 
no  boxes,  but  I  had  a  quantity  of  new  lumber,  which 
we  had  secured  from  a  mill  in  the  vicinity ;  so,  refus- 
ing to  be  moved,  I  took  off  my  coat  and  went  to 


194          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

work  sawing  up  the  lumber  and  making  boxes. 
The  other  men  never  let  their  guns  leave  their 
hands,  and  kept  guard  all  night,  expecting  every 
moment  to  hear  the  whoop  of  the  Indians. 

By  daylight  I  had  every  fossil  neatly  packed,  each 
in  a  little  box,  and  then  we  all  took  hold,  and  carry- 
ing the  boxes  down  to  the  first  river  bottom,  hid  them 
under  a  great  grapevine,  which  completely  covered 
them.  After  throwing  dead  leaves  over  our  trail, 
I  was  satisfied  that  we  had  done  all  that  we  could, 
and  as  we  could  not  induce  Mascall  to  abandon  his 
property,  we  left  him  and  went  over  to  the  Gulch. 
We  found  nearly  all  the  settlers  keeping  house  in- 
side the  stockade,  which  was  built  of  pine  logs  and 
covered  enough  ground  to  hold  their  teams,  wagons, 
and  cattle,  as  well  as  themselves. 

As  I  realized  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to 
do  any  work  in  the  John  Day  beds,  fearing  every 
moment  to  be  surprised  by  Indians,  I  concluded  that 
this  would  be  a  good  time  to  go  to  the  Dalles  and 
try  to  find  out  what  had  become  of  the  collection  of 
Fossil  Lake  material  which  had  been  sent  off  the 
year  before,  and  had  been  lost  somewhere.  I  had  a 
receipt  for  the  specimens  from  a  Mr.  French,  who 
was,  I  supposed,  the  agent  for  the  Oregon  Steam 
Navigation  Company.  His  letterhead  read  "  For- 
warding Agent  for  the  O.  S.  N.  Co./'  but  I  had 
repeatedly  written  to  the  agent  at  the  Dalles,  and 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      195 

had  received  no  answer,  while  Cope,  from  his  end 
of  the  line  at  Philadelphia,  had  sent  tracers  out  over 
every  route  he  could  think  of,  trying  to  locate  the 
fossils. 

A  Mr.  Wood,  the  owner  of  a  large  herd  of  horses, 
was  driving  the  herd  to  a  point  near  the  Dalles  for 
protection  from  the  Indians,  and  I  joined  his  party. 
But  the  several  hundred  horses  raised  such  a  volume 
of  dust  that,  after  a  few  days  of  suffocation,  I  con- 
cluded that  I  might  as  well  lose  my  scalp  as  be 
choked  to  death,  and  leaving  the  herd,  went  on 
alone.  All  along  the  way,  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren were  fleeing  for  safety  to  the  Dalles,  and 
dozens  of  homes  and  ranches  were  being  deserted 
just  at  the  time  when  the  people  should  have  been 
saving  their  grain.  I  never  in  my  life  saw  so  much 
excitement  and  fear.  As  many  white  men  were 
fleeing  for  their  lives  as  there  were  Indians  on  the 
warpath,  and  every  man  of  them  was  blaming 
General  Howard  for  not  having  exterminated  the 
hostiles  before  they  started. 

I  met  the  man  who  had  hauled  my  Fossil  Lake 
collection  in  to  the  Dalles,  and  for  the  first  time 
learned  the  truth  about  them.  It  seems  that  they 
had  never  been  shipped.  Mr.  French  simply  had 
a  warehouse,  and  forwarded  goods  by  the  Steam 
Navigation  Company,  and  mine  had  been  covered 
up  in  the  warehouse  and  entirely  forgotten.  I  was 


196          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

in  splendid   spirits  when  I  knew  that  they  were 
safe. 

Having  rescued  this  valuable  material  from  the 
warehouse,  I  returned  to  the  Gulch  without  seeing 
an  Indian,  to  find  the  people  still  in  a  state  of  great 
excitement.  General  Howard  had  sent  word  that 
the  men  could  put  themselves  under  the  leadership 
of  Colonel  Bernard,  each  citizen  furnishing  his  own 
mount  and  arms,  but  receiving  his  rations  from  the 
Government.  I  tried  to  raise  a  company  of  men  to 
accept  this  offer,  but  not  a  man  cared  to  go.  At 
last,  heartily  tired  of  staying  in  camp,  I  asked  for  a 
volunteer  to  go  with  me  to  the  John  Day  valley  to 
find  out  how  Mr.  Mascall  and  the  old  man  at  the 
stage  station  were  getting  on.  No  one  would  go  at 
first,  but  later  Mr.  Leander  Davis,  who  was  for 
many  years  a  fossil  hunter  for  Professor  Marsh, 
agreed  to  go  with  me;  and  packing  a  horse  with 
blankets  and  supplies,  we  started. 

We  were  relieved  to  find  both  men  well,  and  no 
sign  of  Indians.  Continuing  our  journey  east,  we 
crossed  the  south  fork  of  the  John  Day,  and  all 
doubts  as  to  the  movements  of  the  Indians  were  re- 
moved. For  a  wide  trail,  cut  deeply  into  the  dry 
soil  by  six  thousand  horses  and  the  three  hundred 
Indians  who  were  driving  them  north,  led  down  the 
slope  and  followed  up  the  main  fork  on  the  Canyon 
City  road. 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      197 

As  we  sat  on  our  horses,  looking  south  along  the 
heavy  trail,  we  saw  some  half-dozen  horsemen  com- 
ing toward  us.  We  knew  that  they  must  have  seen 
us,  and  concluded  to  stay  where  we  were  until  we 
could  make  them  out.  Before  long  we  saw  the  glit- 
ter of  sabers  and  the  flash  of  gold  buttons,  and  soon 
General  Howard  and  his  staff  rode  up  at  a  gallop. 
I  recognized  him  by  his  brigadier  general  straps  and 
by  his  empty  sleeve.  He  had  lost  an  arm  fighting  to 
preserve  the  Union. 

We  saluted,  and  he  asked  me  whether  we  had  seen 
his  pack  train.  When  I  answered  no,  he  asked  me 
if  we  knew  where  he  could  find  some  bacon,  as  he 
and  his  staff,  as  well  as  the  troops  behind  them,  had 
been  living  for  three  days  on  fresh  beef  without  any 
salt.  I  told  him  of  a  smokehouse  across  the  bridge, 
and  he  sent  his  scout  to  examine  it.  The  man  re- 
turned shortly  with  the  report  that  not  only  was  the 
smokehouse  full  of  bacon,  but  that  the  table  in  the 
dwelling  house  was  set  for  a  meal,  with  cold  coffee 
in  the  cups,  bread,  cold  bacon,  and  potatoes,  all 
ready  to  eat.  The  people  had  evidently  just  sat 
down  to  dinner  when  someone  had  rushed  in  with 
the  news  that  the  Indians  were  coming,  and  they  had 
all  thrown  back  their  chairs  and  fled  for  their  lives. 

While  the  General  and  his  staff  sat  down  to  a 
hearty  meal,  Leander  and  I  continued  to  follow  the 
trail.  At  one  place,  where  a  farmer  made  cheese, 


198          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

we  found  that  a  number  of  large  cheeses  had  been 
taken  out  into  the  road  and  rolled  along  for  some 
distance  with  a  stick.  We  followed  up  the  trail 
which  they  had  made  in  the  deep  dust,  and  put  one 
of  them  on  our  pack.  We  went  into  one  of  the 
houses  on  the  road,  and  found  that  the  Indians  had 
broken  up  all  the  furniture,  including  the  sewing- 
machine,  etc.  In  the  front  room  they  had  poured 
out  a  barrel  of  molasses,  spread  over  it  several  sacks 
of  flour,  and  stuck  a  little  woolly  dog  in  the  mixture. 
The  poor  little  fellow  was  dead.  A  little  farther 
on,  a  sheepman's  house  had  been  burned,  and  near 
by  two  thousand  sheep  had  been  mutilated  and 
thrown  into  piles  to  die.  The  herders  were  found 
scalped  a  few  days  later.  At  one  farmhouse  a  fine 
brood  mare  had  been  killed  because  she  could  not 
keep  up  with  the  herd. 

Some  days  later,  on  the  twenty-ninth  of  July,  I 
believe,  there  was  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun.  The 
heavens  were  like  brass,  and  there  was  a  peculiar 
condition  of  the  atmosphere  such  as  I  have  never 
experienced  before  or  since.  A  report  was  spread 
abroad  that  the  Indians  had  returned  and  burned  all 
the  farmhouses  along  the  river.  I  was  at  the  time 
with  Leander  Davis,  and  we  rode  up  to  Perkins 
ranch,  where  a  lot  of  men  had  congregated  and  were 
taking  turns  standing  guard  for  fear  of  the  Indians. 
When  we  rode  up  they  were  standing  about,  uncer- 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River      199 

tain  as  to  what  it  all  meant.  The  dogs  had  gone 
under  the  stoop  and  the  chickens  to  roost.  The  air 
was  motionless,  and  an  unusual  stillness  was  over 
everything.  The  men  welcomed  us  in  hushed 
voices. 

I  sprang  from  my  horse  and  asked  Perkins 
whether  he  had  any  pieces  of  broken  glass.  He  said 
that  there  were  plenty  under  the  west  window,  and 
I  went  and  got  a  supply,  followed  by  all  the  men, 
who  were  greatly  relieved  by  my  explanation  of  the 
phenomenon.  We  got  a  candle  and  blackened 
the  pieces  of  glass,  and  watched  the  progress  of 
the  eclipse  through  them. 

It  had  a  more  disquieting  effect  upon  the  hostile 
Indians.  It  seems  that  the  soldiers  had  cut  them 
off  from  crossing  the  Columbia  by  capturing  all  the 
small  boats  and  patrolling  the  river  night  and  day; 
so  that  with  Howard's  troops  on  the  trail  behind 
them,  troops  from  Walla  Walla  on  their  flanks,  and 
the  river  in  front,  they  were  in  a  bad  way.  More- 
over, the  French  brothers  and  the  governor  of  Ore- 
gon had  offered  a  reward  of  two  thousand  dollars 
for  Egan's  head. 

The  Umatilla  Indians  were  accused  of  pretending 
to  help  the  whites  in  the  daytime,  and  really  helping 
the  Snakes  at  night.  So  the  commander  sent  out  a 
party  of  soldiers  to  capture  the  squaws  and  little 
children  of  Homely  and  the  other  chiefs  and  hold 


200          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

them  as  hostages  for  the  good  behavior  of  their 
braves.  When  the  latter  asked  the  commander  to 
release  their  families,  the  answer  was  given  that  if 
they  would  capture  Egan  and  deliver  him  up  to  the 
authorities,  they  would  not  only  get  back  their  wives 
and  children,  but  would  receive  the  two-thousand- 
dollar  reward.  Otherwise  their  families  would  still 
be  held  as  hostages. 

It  appeared  that  Egan  had  an  appointment  with 
Homely  at  a  certain  hour.  As  he  rode  out  from  his 
camp,  with  a  brave  behind  him,  Homely,  similarly 
attended,  went  out  to  meet  him.  When  they  met 
between  the  two  camps,  they  turned  at  right  angles 
and  rode  toward  the  point  agreed  upon  for  the 
powwow.  But  as  they  were  riding  thus,  side  by 
side,  Homely,  with  a  word  to  his  brave,  suddenly 
raised  his  rifle  and  shot  Egan,  while  his  brave  shot 
the  attending  Snake.  They  then  immediately 
severed  the  heads  of  the  dead  men,  and  riding  back 
with  them  to  the  whites,  claimed  the  reward.  About 
the  same  time,  the  eclipse  came  on,  and  the  poor 
Snakes,  deprived  of  their  leader,  thought  that  the 
world  was  coming  to  an  end,  and  leaving  their  great 
herd  of  stolen  horses,  fled  in  small  bands  toward 
the  Malheur  Reservation,  and  were  all  eventually 
captured. 

The  war  thus  ended,  as  soon  as  I  could  get  things 
in  shape  and  my  party  together,  I  returned  to  the 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River     201 

Cove,  got  my  outfit  and  fossils,  and  moved  over  into 
Haystack  Valley.  I  remained  there  all  winter,  and 
the  next  season  secured  another  large  collection. 
Many  of  the  specimens  in  it  are  described  by  Pro- 
fessor Cope  in  Vol.  Ill  of  the  "  Tertiary  Verte- 
brata."  On  p.  xxvi  and  the  two  following  pages 
of  the  preface,  he  pays  his  collectors  a  high 
compliment,  which  I  give  myself  the  pleasure  of  re- 
peating here  in  his  own  words :  "  The  same  year 
['77]  I  employed  Charles  H.  Sternberg  to  conduct 
an  exploration  of  the  Cretaceous  and  Tertiary  for- 
mations of  Kansas.  After  a  successful  search,  I 
sent  Mr.  Sternberg  to  Oregon.  The  Tertiary  for- 
mations explored  in  1878  were  the  John  Day  and 
Loup  Fork  of  Oregon.  The  John  Day  formation 
was  chiefly  examined  on  the  John  Day  River  and 
the  Loup  Fork  beds  at  various  points  in  the  same 
region.  These  yielded  about  fifty  species,  many  of 
them  represented  in  an  admirable  state  of  preserva- 
tion." 

After  mentioning  the  work  of  his  other  explorers, 
he  goes  on  to  say :  "  Mr.  Sternberg's  expedition  of 
1878  was  interrupted  by  the  Bannock  war,  and  both 
himself  and  Mr.  Wortman  were  compelled  to  leave 
their  camp  and  outfit  in  the  field  and  fly  to  a  place  of 
safety  on  their  horses.  It  is  evident  that  an  en- 
thusiastic devotion  to  science  has  actuated  these  ex- 
plorers of  our  western  wilderness,  financial  con- 


2O2  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

siderations  having  been  but  a  secondary  inducement. 
And  I  wish  to  remark  that  the  courage  and  dis- 
regard of  physical  comfort  displayed  by  the  gentle- 
men above  referred  to  are  qualities  of  which  their 
country  may  be  proud,  and  are  worthy  of  the 
highest  commendation  and  of  imitation  in  every 
field." 

Before  leaving  this  interesting  field,  I  wish  to 
show  my  readers  Cope's  figure  of  the  great  saber- 
toothed  tiger,  Pogonodon  platycopis  (Fig.  31), 
which  was  secured  in  1879  by  Leander  Davis.  I 
do  not  remember  who  first  discovered  the  specimen, 
but  for  weeks  each  of  us  collectors,  Wortman,  Davis, 
and  I,  tried  to  devise  some  means  of  securing  it. 
The  skull  topped  a  pinnacle,  perhaps  thirty  or  forty 
feet  high,  and  tapering  like  the  spire  of  a  church. 
At  the  top  it  was  only  a  foot  in  diameter.  We 
knew  that  it  would  not  be  strong  enough  to  support 
the  weight  of  a  ladder,  and  it  was  too  steep  to  scale. 
Moreover,  if  we  blew  it  up  with  powder,  the  skull, 
whose  rows  of  teeth  seemed  to  grin  at  us  defiantly, 
would  be  shattered  to  bits. 

By  whatever  method  it  was  secured,  it  represented 
a  feat  of  the  greatest  possible  bravery,  and  Cope  did 
only  justice  to  Leander  Davis  in  publishing  his  un- 
derstanding of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  done. 
That  description  is  attached  to  the  skull  to-day,  and 
thousands  have  read  of  Davis'  heroic  act  in  securing 


FIG.  29. — FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.     (After  Merriam.) 
Mascall  Formation. 


FIG.  30. — FOSSIL-BEARING  CLIFFS.     (After  Merriam.) 
Clarno  Formation. 


II 


C 

!.  S 
*| 

2  0 


Expedition  to  John  Day  River     203 

it  for  science.  Professor  Cope  says  that  he  cut 
niches  and  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  spire.  My  re- 
membrance, however,  is  that  he  threw  a  rope  around 
the  spire  and  let  it  settle  down  to  where  he  thought 
the  rock  would  be  strong  enough  to  support  his 
weight.  He  then  climbed  up  hand  over  hand  to  the 
loop,  stood  erect,  picked  up  the  skull,  and  without 
putting  any  pressure  on  the  rock,  got  back  to  his 
rope  and  down  to  safety  below.  He  then  secured 
the  rope  by  jerking  off  the  top  of  the  pinnacle. 

It  matters  little  how  he  got  the  skull,  but  I  am 
ready  to  testify  that  it  was  the  bravest  undertaking 
I  ever  saw  accomplished  in  the  John  Day  beds ;  and 
as  long  as  science  lasts,  this  noble  specimen  of  one 
of  the  largest  tigers  that  ever  lived  should  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  Leander  Davis.  I  am  glad 
that  the  great  dike  across  the  Cove  is  named  after 
him  also. 

What  is  it  that  urges  a  man  to  risk  his  life  in 
these  precipitous  fossil  beds  ?  I  can  answer  only  for 
myself,  but  with  me  there  were  two  motives,  the 
desire  to  add  to  human  knowledge,  which  has  been 
the  great  motive  of  my  life,  and  the  hunting  instinct, 
which  is  deeply  planted  in  my  heart.  Not  the  desire 
to  destroy  life,  but  to  see  it.  The  man  whose  love 
for  wild  animals  is  most  deeply  developed  is  not  he 
who  ruthlessly  takes  their  lives,  but  he  who  follows 
them  with  the  camera,  studies  them  with  loving 


204  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

sympathy,  and  pictures  them  in  their  various  haunts. 
It  is  thus  that  I  love  creatures  of  other  ages,  and 
that  I  want  to  become  acquainted  with  them  in  their 
natural  environments.  They  are  never  dead  to  me ; 
my  imagination  breathes  life  into  "  the  valley  of  dry 
bones,"  and  not  only  do  the  living  forms  of  the 
animals  stand  before  me,  but  the  countries  which 
they  inhabited  rise  for  me  through  the  mists  of  the 
ages. 

The  mind  fills  with  awe  as  it  journeys  back  to 
those  far-distant  lands.  Stop,  reader,  and  think! 
In  this  John  Day  region,  ten  thousand  feet,  or  nearly 
two  miles,  of  sedimentary  and  volcanic  rock  lie 
above  the  Niobrara  Group  of  the  Cretaceous,  from 
which  I  dug  last  summer  the  beautiful  skull  of  a 
Kansas  mosasaur,  Platecarpus  coryphans,  which  lies 
before  me  now,  its  glistening  teeth  as  perfect  as  in 
the  days  when  they  dripped  with  the  blood  of  its  vic- 
tims. How  many  ages  were  those  ten  thousand  feet 
in  building?  How  long  has  it  taken  the  running 
water,  with  its  tools  of  sand  and  gravel,  to  carve  out 
the  Grande  Coulee  and  the  river  valley,  and  expose 
all  the  various  formations,  with  their  records  of  the 
life  of  the  past?  And  yet  all  this  has  taken  place 
since  my  mosasaur,  which  seems  to  watch  me  as  I 
write,  fought  its  last  battle  and  sank  to  rest  beneath 
the  waves  of  the  Cretaceous  sea. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MY  FIRST  EXPEDITION  TO  THE  PER- 
MI  AN  OF  TEXAS,  1882 

Y  first  expedition  to  the  Permian  of  Texas 
was  made  in  1882,  while  I  was  in  charge 
of    collecting    parties    for   the   Museum 
of    Comparative    Zoology    of    Harvard 
University. 

I  left  the  station  at  North  Cambridge  about  the 
fifteenth  of  December,  and  reached  Dallas  on  the 
twenty-first,  with  the  address  of  A.  R.  Roessler ;  but 
I  was  told  at  the  post-office  that  there  was  no  such 
man  and  no  such  address  in  the  city.  I  had  been 
depending  absolutely  upon  the  information  which  I 
hoped  to  receive  from  this  Mr.  Roessler,  as  I  myself 
had  no  more  idea  as  to  the  whereabouts  of  the 
Permian  beds  than  a  new-born  child.  Dr.  Hayden 
had  written  me  to  follow  up  Red  River  until  I  found 
the  red  beds,  which  had  colored  the  whole  flood- 
plain  of  the  valley,  and  I  had  seen  the  red  mud  at 
Texarkana  as  I  entered  the  state;  but  it  would  take 
years  to  explore  the  whole  valley  of  that  great 
stream.  I  felt  that  I  had  come  upon  a  wild-goose 

205 


206          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

chase,  and  I  suppose  showed  my  dismay  in  my  face, 
for  the  postmaster  asked  if  he  could  help  me.  I 
told  him  my  troubles,  and  he  said  that  there  was  a 
man  in  town,  a  Professor  W.  A.  Cummins,  who  had 
been  Cope's  assistant  the  year  before. 

Greatly  cheered,  I  went  to  the  man's  house  post- 
haste, to  be  met  at  the  door  by  his  wife,  who  told 
me  that  the  Professor  was  in  Austin.  Whereupon 
my  spirits  dropped  below  zero  again.  But  if  a  girl's 
face  is  her  fortune,  so  is  a  man's  sometimes,  for  I 
gained  Mrs.  Cummins'  sympathy  at  once.  When  I 
told  her  why  I  had  come  to  Texas,  she  answered, 
"  Why,  I  was  with  Professor  Cummins  on  his  ex- 
pedition to  the  Permian  beds,"  and  proceeded  to 
give  me  all  the  information  which  I  thought  neces- 
sary. 

I  learned  that  they  had  made  their  headquarters 
at  Seymour,  in  Baylor  County,  between  the  Brazos 
and  Wichita  rivers,  and  I  supposed  that  anyone  in 
Seymour  could  tell  me  the  exact  localities  from 
which  the  fossils  came.  Later  I  found  to  my  sor- 
row that  this  was  not  the  case;  and  I  wasted  months 
of  careful  exploration  over  barren  beds  before  I 
found  the  horizon  that  yielded  the  wonderful 
batrachians  and  reptiles  of  which  I  had  come  in 
search. 

Much  elated,  I  took  the  train  for  Gordon,  a  cattle- 
men's town  south  of  Seymour,  and  the  point  nearest 


The  Permian  of  Texas  207 

to  it  by  rail.  I  arrived  there  on  Christmas  Eve.  I 
was  the  only  passenger  to  leave  the  cars  and  was 
welcomed  by  about  twenty  cowboys,  who  were  just 
beginning  to  paint  the  town  red.  The  leader  asked 
me  where  I  came  from,  and  I  answered  promptly, 
"  From  Boston." 

"  Where  do  you  want  to  go  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  To  the  best  hotel  in  town,"  said  I. 

"All  right!"  he  said.  "We'll  take  you  there." 
And  sure  enough,  they  did.  They  formed  in  double 
file  and  put  me  in  the  middle  of  their  ranks.  Then 
the  two  men  ahead  of  me  laid  their  Winchesters 
over  my  shoulders  from  in  front,  and  the  two  men 
behind  crossed  these  guns  with  their  own,  and  at  the 
word,  "  Fire  at  will !  "  the  whole  command  opened 
fire  and  kept  it  up  all  the  way  to  the  hotel.  There 
a  girl  appeared,  carrying  a  lamp  with  no  chimney, 
and  the  men,  facing  the  porch,  allowed  me  to  go  into 
the  waiting  room.  I  turned  first,  and  made  a  little 
speech,  thanking  them  for  their  kind  reception  and 
remarking  that  if  I  were  not  so  poor,  I  should  stand 
treat  for  the  whole  crowd.  This  satisfied  them,  and 
shouting  "  All  right ! "  they  went  off  to  continue 
their  nonsense  until  they  were  all  drunk. 

I  hired  the  son  of  the  hotel  keeper,  a  Mr.  Ham- 
man,  put  my  baggage  in  his  wagon,  and  started  on 
the  journey  north  to  my  headquarters  at  Seymour, 
which  we  reached  eight  days  later.  Here  I  got  off 


208          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

the  track  again,  for  although  everyone  in  town 
knew  Professor  Cummins,  no  one  could  tell  where 
he  had  found  his  fossils.  "  Over  in  the  brakes,"  was 
all  the  information  anyone  could  give.  Finally  a 
man  named  Turner  asked  me  to  come  over  to  his 
cattle  range  on  the  middle  fork  of  the  Wichita,  as 
the  country  was  cut  up  into  canyons  and  ridges  and 
denuded,  so  that  I  should  be  likely  to  find  fossils. 
He  knew  of  some  mastodon  bones  in  the  vicinity, 
he  said.  So  I  went  with  him. 

At  one  place  the  road  led  us  across  the  narrows, 
where  there  is  scarcely  room  for  a  wagon  road  be- 
tween the  brakes  of  the  Brazos  and  the  Big  Wichita. 
Looking  south,  shallow  ravines  led  to  the  valley  of 
the  Brazos,  while  to  the  north  were  deep  gulches  and 
mounds  capped  with  white  ledges  of  gypsum  with 
red  beds  of  clay  below.  I  had  reached  at  last  the 
red  beds  of  Texas. 

An  interesting  phenomenon  is  to  be  observed 
here — the  bed  of  the  Big  Wichita  is  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  feet  lower  than  that  of  the  Brazos. 
North  of  the  Brazos,  along  a  line  that  extends 
through  Baylor  County,  the  country  has  been  lifted 
up  and  disturbed  by  pressure  from  below,  while 
south  of  that  line,  the  only  disturbance  in  the  strata 
has  been  due  to  erosion.  Everywhere  in  the  red 
beds  of  the  Wichita  valley  are  signs  of  an  eleva- 
tion of  the  earth's  crust,  and  for  miles  down  the 


The  Permian  of  Texas  209 

stream  one  comes  upon  miniature  mountains  with 
the  strata  turned  up  at  all  angles.  The  river  valley 
occupies  a  fault. 

Very  beautiful  indeed  was  the  view  when  we  got 
in  sight  of  the  brakes  of  the  Big  Wichita.  As  far  as 
the  eye  could  see  stretched  miniature  Bad  Lands, 
with  rounded  knobs,  deep  canyons,  bluffs,  and 
ravines.  The  prevailing  color  of  the  strata  was  In- 
dian red,  but  beds  of  white  gypsum  and  of  greenish 
sandstone  relieved  the  sameness.  Sometimes  seams 
of  gypsum  filled  cracks  in  the  strata,  forming  dikes  a 
few  inches  in  thickness. 

Between  the  hills  grew  patches  of  grass,  a  wel- 
come sight  to  our  horses,  for  we  had  passed  through 
a  country  devoid  of  vegetation.  The  fall  before, 
the  army  worm  had  eaten  the  ground  clean  of  every- 
thing that  was  eatable.  We  pitched  our  camp  near 
a  ditch  that  had  been  cut  through  the  sediment 
which  overspread  the  flood-plain. 

The  day  after  pitching  camp,  I  heard  George 
Hamman  calling  me,  and  crossing  the  bridge,  saw 
him  beckoning  me  to  follow  him.  He  gathered  his 
pockets  full  of  cobblestones  as  he  went  along,  and 
when  he  reached  the  edge  of  the  ditch  a  little  way 
below  the  crossing,  he  began  to  throw  the  stones  at 
something.  I  ran  up  to  him,  and  heard  the  rattle  of 
snakes,  but  could  not  see  any  until,  resting  my  hand 
on  his  shoulder,  I  lifted  myself  on  my  toes  and  saw, 


210  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

on  the  other  side  of  the  ditch,  a  cave  with  a  broad 
floor.  Lying  singly  or  knotted  together  in  gorgon 
spheres,  with  heads  sticking  out  in  all  directions, 
were  hundreds  of  large  rattlesnakes,  which  had 
come  out  of  the  cracks  in  the  earth  to  bask  in  the 
sun  on  this  sheltered  floor.  They  had  become  ter- 
ribly irritated  by  the  blows  of  the  stones  which 
Hamman  was  hurling  at  them,  and  were  rattling  in 
chorus  and  striking  out  in  all  directions,  biting  them- 
selves and  each  other.  Suddenly,  one  rattled  in  the 
high  grass  at  our  very  feet,  and  looking  down,  we 
saw  a  big  fellow  making  ready  to  strike.  As  quick 
as  a  flash  Hamman  threw  himself  over  backward, 
knocking  me  down,  and  the  instant  he  touched  the 
ground,  turned  a  complete  somerset.  While  I  lay 
there,  overcome  with  laughter,  he  turned  two  more, 
and  finding  himself  on  the  road,  started  for  camp  on 
a  run.  I  was  too  hysterical  with  laughter  to  help 
myself,  and  lay  there,  while  the  snake  continued  to 
sound  its  rattle  and  dart  out  its  forked  tongue, 
swinging  its  head  back  and  forth  above  its  coiled 
body.  When  George  saw  my  predicament,  he  was 
brave  enough  to  come  back  and  pull  me  out  of  reach 
of  his  lordship's  fangs.  Then  we  were  mean 
enough  to  kill  him.  He  measured  five  feet  in 
length. 

The  valley  contained  thousands  of  wild  turkeys, 
and  it  was  a  fine  sight  to  see  them  come  down  in 


The  Permian  of  Texas  2 1 1 

great  droves  from  the  hills  at  night  to  roost  in  the 
trees  below.  On  the  level  prairie  there  were  many 
antelope,  also;  and  wild  cats  and  coyotes  were  seen 
nearly  every  day.  I  remember  one  day,  when  cross- 
ing a  low  level  prairie  covered  with  bushes  a  couple 
of  feet  in  height,  seeing  at  my  left  a  coyote  which 
was  running  along  in  a  straight  line,  with  its  nose 
pointed  toward  a  certain  spot,  like  a  pointer  dog 
after  a  prairie  chicken.  My  interest  was  aroused, 
and  to  increase  my  curiosity,  I  caught  sight  of  a 
short-tailed  cat,  the  Canadian  lynx,  crawling  along 
the  ground  in  the  same  direction.  I  knew  that  they 
were  both  trailing  some  prey  which  each,  unknown 
to  the  other,  had  scented,  and  imagining  that  it 
might  be  a  calf,  I  shouted,  as  I  did  not  want  to  see 
it  torn  to  pieces.  This  startled  the  cat,  and  drove 
her  off  at  a  tangent  to  her  trail.  The  coyote  con- 
tinued his  course,  but  did  not  stop,  for  a  Texas  cow 
had  run  to  the  point  toward  which  he  was  traveling, 
and  stood  with  lowered  horns,  ready  to  repel  his 
assault;  while  her  calf  sprang  up  and  deliberately 
proceeded  to  take  advantage  of  the  situation  to  get 
his  dinner. 

In  this  region,  as  in  the  Kansas  chalk  beds,  the 
question  of  water  gave  us  a  great  deal  of  trouble. 
All  the  water  in  the  river  is  that  which  goes  by  the 
name  of  alkali  in  the  West,  being  thoroughly  im- 
pregnated with  salt  and  other  mineral  ingredients. 


212          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

There  are,  moreover,  no  wells  or  springs  in  the  red 
beds.  The  surface  rock  is  porous,  and  the  water 
sinks  through  it  to  the  compact  gray  beds  below, 
from  which  it  drains  off  into  the  river.  These  gray 
beds  are  some  distance  below  the  surface,  and  so  far 
as  I  know,  have  never  been  reached  in  digging  for 
water.  One  is,  therefore,  forced  to  depend  upon 
rain  water.  This  is  collected  either  in  artificial 
tanks  built  by  the  cattlemen,  or  in  natural  tanks, 
sometimes  along  the  creek  beds,  but  usually  in  the 
flood-plain  in  old  creek  beds,  where  the  fine  red  mud 
has  been  puddled  by  cattle,  perhaps,  or  in  the  olden 
days,  by  buffalo.  These  ponds  hold  water  for  years, 
although  often  they  become  very  foul  from  the  cat- 
tle that  frequent  and  wade  into  them  in  summer  to 
get  away  from  the  flies. 

It  is  an  odd  sight  to  a  stranger  in  the  valley  of  the 
Big  Wichita  to  see  the  rain  come  rushing  down  the 
hills.  It  soon  becomes  as  thick  as  cream  with  the 
fine  red  clay,  and  to  think  of  depending  upon  such 
water  for  drinking  and  cooking  purposes  is  revolt- 
ing to  one  who  remembers  the  sparkling  springs  and 
clear  wells  of  the  East  or  any  mountainous  country. 
During  quiet  days,  when  the  wind  was  not  blowing, 
the  red  mud  would  settle  in  the  bottom  of  the  tanks, 
but  one  had  to  be  careful  not  to  pull  out  one's  pail 
suddenly  or  the  water  would  instantly  thicken  with 
mud  from  the  bottom. 


The  Permian  of  Texas  213 

Nothing  would  settle  this  water  but  boiling  it, 
although  it  might  be  cleared  a  little  by  the  pulp  of 
cactus  leaves.  I  have  sometimes  gone  to  the  trouble 
of  peeling  the  broad  leaves  of  the  prickly  pear  and 
beating  them  into  a  mucilaginous  pulp  to  throw  into 
a  pail  of  muddy  water.  The  mud  attached  itself  to 
this  material  and  sank  with  it  to  the  bottom;  but 
even  then  the  clarified  liquid  remaining  on  top  did 
not  make  a  very  tempting  drink.  I  soon  got  used 
to  the  thick  red  water,  however,  as  had  the  other 
inhabitants  of  the  country,  and  for  six  seasons  drank 
it  thankfully,  when  I  was  thirsty.  When  a  man  is 
thirsty,  he  drinks  first  and  tastes  the  water  after- 
wards. I  once  asked  an  old  cowman  what  he  did 
for  drinking  water  on  the  range,  and  he  answered, 
"  Wherever  and  whatever  a  cow  can  drink,  I  can." 
And  cows  will  take  filthy  water,  if  they  can  get  no 
other. 

All  that  winter  I  worked  in  these  desolate  beds, 
walking  over  thousands  of  acres  of  denuded  rock, 
searching  without  success  for  the  fossil  fields.  The 
dominant  color  of  these  beds  is  red,  but  the  tints 
vary  so  that  the  eye  is  dazzled  and  wearied  by  the 
constant  change.  There  are  countless  concretions 
too,  all  of  which  had  to  be  looked  over.  If  fine 
specimens  had  rewarded  the  labor,  all  would  have 
been  well,  but  I  know  of  no  work  more  trying  than 
spending  day  after  day  in  a  fruitless  search. 


214  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

At  last  Hamman,  having  fattened  his  horses  on 
two-dollar  corn,  started  a  quarrel  with  me,  so  that 
he  might  have  an  excuse  for  deserting  me,  and  drove 
off  with  the  team,  which  I  had  hired  for  some  time 
longer,  leaving  me  alone,  thirty  miles  from  town. 
Fortunately,  however,  I  found  a  good,  honest  Irish- 
man, Pat  Whelan  by  name,  who  became  not  only  a 
splendid  assistant,  but  a  true  friend.  Poor  fellow ! 
I  learned  a  few  years  ago  that  he  had  frozen  to 
death  in  Montana. 

One  warm,  sultry  day  I  sent  him  in  to  town  for 
provisions.  I  had  no  tent  at  that  time,  but  he  left 
me  the  wagon  sheet,  and  I  had  camped  on  the  south 
side  of  a  large  tree,  which  was  so  effectually  covered 
with  green  briers  as  to  be  an  almost  impenetrable 
defense  against  the  north  wind. 

I  was  in  the  field  after  Mr.  Whelan  left  me,  and 
noticing  the  Texas  cattle  coming  from  the  prairie  to 
the  heavy  timber,  I  concluded,  although  there  was 
not  a  cloud  in  sight,  that  they  had  scented  a  norther. 
Rushing  to  camp,  I  began  rapidly  to  make  prepara- 
tions for  the  storm.  First  I  cut  a  couple  of  crotches 
and  sank  them  well  into  the  ground  on  the  south 
side  of  the  brier-covered  tree.  Then  I  put  up  a 
ridgepole  and  stretched  over  it  the  wagon  sheet, 
which  I  fastened  securely  to  the  ground  on  either 
side.  I  also  heaped  dirt  on  the  edges,  to  keep 
out  the  snow.  I  thus  had  a  dog  tent,  opening 


The  Permian  of  Texas  215 

toward  the  northern  barrier  and  toward  the 
south. 

There  was  plenty  of  fallen  wood  lying  about,  and 
I  devoted  every  moment  and  all  my  strength  to  cut- 
ting it  up  and  dragging  it  to  the  tent.  I  must  have 
got  several  cords  together  before  I  heard  the  wind 
howling  in  the  heavy  timber  to  the  north.  I  piled 
up  this  supply  of  fuel  at  the  opening  toward  the 
green  brier  thicket,  and  built  a  big  fire  at  the  mouth 
of  the  tent. 

Soon  an  awful  storm  was  upon  me,  all  alone,  thirty 
miles  from  any  human  habitation.  How  the  wind 
moaned  through  the  creaking  branches!  A  dense 
darkness  spread  like  a  pall  over  the  heavens,  and 
the  shrieks  and  wails  of  the  tempest  echoed  through 
the  woods  like  the  cries  of  lost  souls.  Then  snow 
and  sleet  began  to  fall  in  fitful  gusts,  and  beat  upon 
the  thin  canvas  that  was  my  only  shelter.  At  such  a 
time  a  man  loses  much  of  his  confidence  in  himself. 
Pretty  small  I  felt  myself  when  measured  with  that 
storm,  which  bent  the  great  cottonwoods  and  elms 
like  reeds  before  it. 

After  supper,  tired  out  with  my  unwonted  exer- 
tions, I  fell  asleep.  Whenever  the  fire  sank  down 
and  the  cold  became  severe,  I  roused  myself  and 
piled  fresh  fuel  on  the  dying  embers,  and  when  they 
blazed  up  again,  dropped  off  once  more.  Three 
days  and  three  nights  that  norther  lasted.  I  under- 


2i 6  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

stood  then  why  the  people  of  the  Southland  speak 
of  them  as  they  do  and  dread  their  coming.  I 
never  once  left  my  shelter  until  it  cleared. 

Poor  Pat  Whelan !  He  had  lost  his  horses  in  the 
storm,  and  being  sure  that  I  would  freeze  to  death 
if  he  could  not  get  back  to  me,  he  had  spent  every 
hour  of  daylight  looking  for  them.  What  he  must 
have  suffered  in  that  awful  gale,  while  I  was  safe 
and  comfortable! 

My  readers  would  grow  weary  if  I  told  the  whole 
story  of  that  winter's  search.  There  were  so  few 
results  that  I  became  thoroughly  disheartened  and 
anxious  to  give  up  the  fight  and  go  home,  where  my 
wife  and  dear  baby  were  waiting  for  me.  There 
was  further  cause  for  discouragement  in  the  fact 
that  Pat  had  only  agreed  to  stay  with  me  until 
spring  plowing  began,  and  the  time  for  that  was 
rapidly  approaching.  But  I  would  not  give  up.  So 
we  worked  on  down  the  stream  toward  the  Fort 
Sill  cattle  trail,  traveling  on  an  average  twenty 
miles  a  day  on  foot,  with  the  record  "  Nothing  "  in 
my  notebook  night  after  night. 

But  on  the  eleventh  of  February,  after  forty 
days  of  unceasing  effort,  I  discovered  below  the 
forks  of  the  Big  Wichita  a  somewhat  different  hori- 
zon from  that  of  the  beds  over  which  I  had  been 
working  so  persistently  without  success.  Some  of 
the  beds  in  this  region  are  composed  of  red  clay; 


The  Permian  of  Texas  217 

with  small  irregular  concretions  that  are  piled  in 
heaps  at  the  base  of  the  hills  and  roll  under  one's 
feet,  rendering  travel  difficult.  In  other  strata  are 
deposits  of  small  nodules,  held  together  by  silica. 
These  nodules  are  of  various  colors,  and  where  held 
securely  and  ground  down,  make  beautiful  mosaics. 
Then  there  are  beds  of  greenish  sandstone,  laid 
down  in  thin  layers ;  and  in  these  beds,  for  the  first 
time  since  I  came  to  Texas,  I  found  the  remains  of 
a  Permian  vertebrate.  My  notes  say :  "  Although 
it  is  not  wise  to  shout  before  I  am  out  of  the  woods, 
yet  I  feel  very  much  encouraged,  and  I  earnestly 
hope  for  the  success  I  have  worked  for.  I  have 
evidently  worked  too  high  in  the  red  beds  to  find 
fossils." 

On  the  second  day  in  these  beds,  I  found  frag- 
ments of  the  great  salamander  Eryops,  and  on  the 
twenty-second  of  February,  I  found  the  first  speci- 
men that  I  had  ever  seen  of  the  long-spined  reptile, 
Dimetredon.  Of  this  last  I  got  seventy-five  pounds 
of  bones  and  matrix,  preserved  in  iron  ore  concre- 
tions. The  teeth  are  long,  recurved,  and  serrated. 
I  knew  little  then  about  these  most  ancient  of  all  the 
vertebrates  that  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  collect, 
but  I  shall  have  more  to  say  about  them  later.  The 
authorities  now  place  the  time  when  these  animals 
lived  twelve  million  years  away.  Indeed,  "  God  is 
not  slack  as  some  men  count  slackness,  one  day  is 


2i 8          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand 
years  as  one  day." 

The  only  way  in  which  we  can  realize  the  lapse  of 
millions  of  years  is  by  a  study  of  the  work  which 
nature  has  accomplished  in  them,  depositing  vast 
strata,  lifting  them  up  into  mountain  ranges,  and 
carving  out  in  them  flood-plains  and  mighty  can- 
yons. More  interesting  still  is  a  study  of  the  count- 
less forms  of  life  which,  in  ever-varying  groups, 
have  each  in  turn  dominated  sea  and  earth  and  air. 
First,  as  here  in  Texas,  the  batrachians  reigned 
supreme,  a  race  of  creatures  which  were  supplied 
with  both  gills  and  lungs,  so  that  they  could  live 
both  on  land  and  in  water.  Then  came  the  reptiles, 
and  later  still  dawned  the  Age  of  Mammals,  with 
man  as  the  crowning  work  of  the  Creator's  hands. 

I  was  now  at  last  in  the  fossiliferous  beds  and 
secured  some  fine  material.  Unfortunately  about 
this  time  Pat  gave  notice  that  he  would  soon  be 
obliged  to  leave  me.  I  should  then  have  no  team, 
and  to  work  in  these  fossil  beds  without  a  means  of 
transportation  would  be  as  useless  as  to  attempt  to 
dig  up  a  forest  with  a  hoe.  I  had,  however,  sent 
north  for  an  assistant,  a  Mr.  Wright,  and  after 
hunting  for  me  a  day  and  a  half  in  the  brakes  of  the 
Big  Wichita,  he  finally  arrived  in  camp. 

On  the  sixth  of  March  a  violent  norther  struck 
us.  We  were  better  off  for  protection  than  we  had 


The  Permian  of  Texas  219 

been,  however,  as  my  tent  had  at  last  arrived  from 
Kansas;  and  although  only  an  A-tent,  it  kept  out 
the  storms  of  sleet  and  snow  that  fell  for  three  days. 
During  all  that  time  the  cattle  remained  without 
food  in  the  dense  woods.  Such  times  as  this,  when 
we  were  confined  to  the  close  quarters  of  our  tent 
and  could  accomplish  nothing  but  keeping  ourselves 
warm,  are  in  my  opinion  the  most  uncomfortable 
which  the  fossil  hunter  is  called  upon  to  endure. 

On  the  ninth  of  March,  the  sun  rose  bright  and 
clear  upon  a  scene  of  surprising  beauty.  Every 
tree,  bush,  and  blade  of  grass  on  the  red  beds  was 
covered  with  a  milky  white  ice,  whose  silvery  luster 
was  set  with  innumerable  sparkling  gems.  It  was 
glorious  at  sunrise,  but  as  the  morning  advanced,  the 
snow  and  ice  began  to  melt,  leaving  patches  of  red 
and  white  over  the  Bad  Lands,  and  by  noon  had  en- 
tirely disappeared.  The  hills  rapidly  dried,  as  the 
thick  red  water  sought  the  drainage  canals,  and  we 
were  soon  at  work  once  more. 

As  a  precaution  against  the  very  difficulty  which 
I  had  encountered, — I  mean  the  impossibility  of 
keeping  a  man  and  team  with  me, — I  had  obtained 
from  the  Secretary  of  War,  through  the  efforts  of 
Professor  Alexander  Agassiz,  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion to  the  commanders  of  western  posts,  requesting 
them  to  assist  me  by  every  means  in  their  power  not 
inconsistent  with  the  public  service.  With  this  let- 


220          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

ter  from  the  Honorable  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  a  son  of 
our  martyred  President,  I  started  out  on  the  twelfth 
of  March  for  Fort  Sill,  on  a  pony  hired  from  a 
livery  stable.  I  was  assured  that.it  was  only  sixty 
miles  to  the  Fort,  and  that  the  pony  could  easily  take 
me  there  in  a  day,  but  I  soon  found  that  he  was  just 
off  grass,  and  weak  and  thin.  I  also  discovered, 
after  night  had  overtaken  me,  that  I  had  been  put  on 
the  wrong  cattle  trail.  I  reached  a  house  in  the 
evening,  that  of  a  school-teacher,  who,  because  of 
his  having  had  some  education  and  possessing  the 
ability  to  talk  intelligently,  was  known  in  that  region 
as  "  Windy  "  Turner,  in  distinction  from  "  Bull  " 
Turner,  a  cowman.  I  found  him  to  be  a  gentleman. 
The  next  morning  he  gave  me  directions  as  to 
how  to  reach  the  old  trail  that  led  to  the  Fort.  I 
was  to  go  to  Wagoner's  cattle  camp,  where  the  trail 
crossed  Beaver  Creek,  and  spend  the  night  there.  I 
traveled  nearly  all  day,  and  reached  the  ranch  build- 
ing, the  only  house  I  had  seen  since  I  left  the  school- 
teacher's, only  to  find  the  camp  deserted.  Not  a 
man  nor  a  cow  was  in  sight.  As  I  had  had  no 
lunch,  I  was  very  hungry,  and  this  being  my  first 
visit  to  this  region,  I  did  not  know  where  to  turn  for 
food  and  shelter.  At  last,  however,  I  saw  a  horse- 
man coming  toward  me  from  the  northeast,  and 
rode  to  meet  him.  He  was  a  cowboy.  I  inquired 
where  Wagoner  had  gone,  and  learned  that  he  had 


The  Permian  of  Texas  221 

left  a  few  days  before  for  the  Indian  Territory.  I 
was  told,  moreover,  that  the  nearest  place  at  which  I 
could  get  a  meal  was  back  on  Coffee  Creek,  which 
I  had  left  in  the  morning.  When  I  complained  of 
being  cold  and  hungry  and  of  not  liking  to  sleep  in 
my  saddle  blanket  on  the  ground  without  supper,  the 
cowboy  replied  that  he  had  not  had  a  morsel  to  eat 
for  three  days  and  that  he  had  slept  for  three  nights 
in  his  saddle  blanket.  After  that  I  said  no  more. 

I  was  unwilling  to  return  all  the  way  back  to  the 
hospitable  roof  that  had  sheltered  me  the  night  be- 
fore, and  continued  my  journey,  with  no  expecta- 
tion of  coming  upon  a  human  habitation  until  I 
reached  Red  River  the  next  night.  It  is  hard  to 
express  my  delight,  therefore,  when,  upon  reaching 
the  divide  between  Beaver  Creek  and  Red  River,  I 
saw  a  lot  of  tents,  some  distance  to  the  right  of  the 
trail.  I  hurried  to  the  encampment,  and  found  that 
it  belonged  to  the  locating  engineer  of  the  Denver 
and  Fort  Worth  Railroad.  When  I  told  the  young 
man  from  whom  I  had  obtained  this  information 
that  I  wanted  to  see  the  engineer,  he  grinned  (I  was 
not  a  very  pleasant-looking  individual,  covered  as 
I  was  with  the  dust  of  travel),  but  he  opened  the 
door  of  the  tent  and  said,  "  Here's  a  man  who  wants 
to  see  you." 

As  the  occupant  of  the  tent  came  forward,  I 
presented  to  him  my  letter  of  introduction  from  the 


222          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Secretary  of  War;  and  I  saw  the  grin  disappear 
from  the  face  of  my  guide  as  the  engineer  shook 
hands  with  me  cordially,  and  remarking,  "  That  is  a 
good  enough  letter  of  introduction  for  me,"  placed 
himself  at  my  service.  When  I  told  him  that  my 
pony  and  I  were  hungry,  he  instructed  the  man  who 
had  expected  to  see  me  refused  the  courtesies  of  the 
camp  to  get  up  a  good  supper  for  me  and  to  care  for 
my  pony.  Then,  inviting  me  to  make  myself  at 
home,  he  entertained  me  royally,  and  after  I  had 
made  a  hearty  meal,  opened  a  bale  of  new  woolen 
blankets,  and  provided  me  with  a  most  comfortable 
bed  in  his  own  tent.  I  hope  if  Major  J.  F.  Menette 
sees  this  story,  he  will  accept  at  this  late  day  my 
thanks  for  his  kindly  treatment. 

The  next  night  I  reached  the  crossing  on  Red 
River,  where  I  found  a  house  and  stayed  all  night. 
The  next  day,  about  nightfall  I  crossed  Cach  Creek, 
and  saw  at  my  right,  in  a  bend  of  the  creek,  an 
elevated  "  bench  "  on  which  a  tepee  was  pitched. 
There  were  two  Indians  standing  about,  one  a  large, 
fleshy,  good-natured  man,  the  other  thin,  with  large, 
prominent  cheek  bones,  a  typical  Comanche.  A 
large  flock  of  children  ran  out  to  greet  me.  I  must 
confess  that  I  felt  a  little  uneasy  at  being  so  entirely 
alone  and  at  the  mercy  of  these  Indians,  but  I  made 
the  best  of  it,  and  as  several  turkeys  were  lying  on 
the  ground,  I  told  the  good-natured  man  that  I 


The  Permian  of  Texas  223 

wanted  his  squaw  to  cook  me  one  for  supper.  This 
she  proceeded  to  do,  removing  the  breast  and  put- 
ting it  on  a  wooden  spit  which  she  stuck  in  the 
ground  before  a  large  bed  of  coals  and  constantly 
turned  until  the  meat  was  done.  This,  with  a  cup 
of  coffee  which  she  made  me  and  the  bread  crumbs 
from  my  lunch,  gave  me  quite  a  meal.  I  was  too 
hungry  to  be  fastidious. 

The  Indians  were  roasting  camus,  the  bulb  of  the 
wild  hyacinth,  which  grew  plentifully  in  the  creek 
bottom.  They  had  dug  a  pit  five  feet  deep  and  three 
in  diameter  and  kindled  a  fire  at  the  bottom,  using  at 
least  a  cord  of  wood  to  heat  thoroughly  the  sur- 
rounding ground.  The  ashes  were  then  scraped 
out,  and  the  walls  plastered  with  a  mortar  of  mud, 
over  which  green  grass  was  thickly  strewn  to  pre- 
vent the  bulbs  from  burning.  The  bulbs  were  then 
put  in  and  covered  with  grass  and  mud,  and  a  fire 
built  on  top  of  them.  The  next  morning  they  were 
done,  and  were  as  much  relished  by  these  Indian 
children  as  popcorn  or  peanuts  by  the  whites.  I 
tasted  some.  They  had  a  sweetish  taste,  a  little  like 
sweet  potatoes,  but  they  were  so  full  of  sand  that 
my  teeth  were  not  strong  enough  to  grind  them  up. 

I  put  off  going  to  bed  until  late,  as  I  dreaded 
sleeping  in  the  high  grass  where  I  had  left  my 
saddle.  But  at  last  the  children,  who  had  been 
amusing  me,  went  off  to  bed,  and  I  decided  to  go 


224          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

too.  I  spread  half  my  saddle  blanket  under  me,  and 
with  my  saddle  for  a  pillow  was  just  dozing  off 
when  I  heard  a  rustle  in  the  dead  grass,  and  the  thin 
Indian,  whom  I  disliked,  stuck  his  head  almost  into 
my  face.  He  had  something  in  his  hands  which  he 
wanted  to  swap  with  me  for  some  of  my  property, 
and  the  more  I  argued,  the  more  determined  he  was 
to  trade.  He  wanted  my  pony,  my  Winchester, 
everything  I  had,  and  I  was  afraid  that  he  would 
take  them  whether  or  no.  At  last,  however,  he  left, 
crawling  through  the  grass  as  he  had  come;  but  I 
was  just  dropping  off  to  sleep,  when  I  heard  the 
snake-like  rustle  again.  I  was  getting  mad  by  that 
time,  and  when  the  Indian  parted  the  tall  grass  and 
peered  through  the  opening,  he  faced  the  muzzle  of 
my  gun,  while  I  told  him  with  much  vehemence  that 
if  he  did  not  go  about  his  business  and  let  me  get  to 
sleep,  I  would  bore  a  hole  through  him.  This  had 
the  desired  effect,  and  but  for  the  cold,  which 
wakened  me  often,  I  slept  in  peace  the  rest  of  the 
night. 

I  was  wakened  in  the  morning  by  a  shot,  and  a 
wild  turkey  fell  from  a  tree  near  where  I  had  been 
sleeping.  They  were  so  tame  and  abundant  that 
they  roosted  in  camp.  The  jolly  Indian  was  anxious 
to  earn  another  quarter,  and  as  I  had  ordered  turkey 
for  supper,  he  had  concluded  that  I  wanted  one  for 
breakfast.  I  was  not  quite  so  hungry  this  morning, 


The  Permian  of  Texas  225 

and  detected  the  Indian  smell  which  is  left  on  every- 
thing they  touch ;  but  I  made  a  brave  attempt  not  to 
show  my  disgust  to  my  host. 

After  breakfast,  as  I  started  out  for  the  trail,  a 
boy  of  fourteen  walked  down  with  me  and  stood 
talking,  with  his  hands  tangled  in  my  pony's  mane. 
I  had  given  him  some  tobacco,  and  he  was  smoking 
a  cigarette  which  he  had  made  with  a  dry  leaf.  At 
our  feet  the  path  divided  and  encircled  a  little 
mound  of  earth  covered  with  buffalo  grass.  When 
the  boy  had  finished  his  smoke,  he  threw  the  still 
burning  stump  into  this  dead  grass,  which  was  damp 
with  dew  and  sent  up  a  dense  column  of  smoke. 
This  was  all  done  so  naturally  that  I  thought 
nothing  of  it  until  I  got  up  on  the  level  prairie, 
where  I  could  see  for  miles  ahead.  As  far  as  the 
eye  could  reach,  column  after  column  of  smoke  was 
rising  through  the  still  morning  air.  It  was  thirty 
miles  from  the  crossing  at  Cach  Creek  to  Fort  Sill, 
yet  when  I  presented  my  letter  to  Major  Guy  Henry 
in  the  office  at  nine  o'clock  the  next  morning,  the 
first  question  he  asked  was  "  Did  you  leave  the 
crossing  at  Cach  Creek  about  sunrise  yesterday 
morning  ?  "  And  when  I  answered  that  I  had,  he 
said  that  probably  about  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  after 
I  left  the  creek,  the  Comanche  chief  had  received 
notice  by  smoke  signal  that  one  man  was  coming 
over  the  trail  toward  the  Fort. 


226          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

In  coming  to  Fort  Sill,  I  had  inadvertently  come 
from  one  department  into  another,  and  the  major 
had  no  power  to  send  men  out  of  his  department 
without  orders  from  General  Sheridan,  the  com- 
manding general  of  the  Army.  So  I  had  to  wait  at 
Fort  Sill  until  the  matter  could  be  arranged. 

The  southern  cowboys,  who  hated  the  army  blue 
and  the  darky  soldiers  who  were  stationed  at  the 
Fort,  were  doing  all  that  they  could  to  irritate  the 
officers.  While  the  latter  were  at  dinner  and  the 
soldiers  off  duty,  a  squad  of  cowboys  would  ride  into 
the  post  across  the  well-kept  grass  on  the  parade 
grounds  up  to  the  flagstaff,  and  fire  at  the  Stars  and 
Stripes.  Another  of  their  tricks  was  to  shoot  off 
the  glass  insulators  from  the  government  telegraph 
lines  which  connect  the  Fort  with  the  headquarters 
at  Leavenworth  and  with  the  Department  of  the 
Gulf.  They  had  just  accomplished  this  piece  of 
mischief  when  I  arrived  at  the  Fort,  and  before  the 
major  could  communicate  with  General  Pope,  Com- 
mander of  the  Department  of  the  Missouri,  in  which 
Fort  Sill  was  situated,  he  had  to  send  out  the  signal 
sergeant  to  repair  the  line. 

At  last,  however,  all  was  arranged,  and  by  general 
order,  Corporal  Bromfield,  three  privates,  a  six- 
mule  team,  and  a  wagon  with  a  white  teamster,  and 
fifty  days'  rations,  were  detailed  for  my  use.  I 
started  out  with  this  escort,  elated  by  the  knowledge 


The  Permian  of  Texas  227 

that  I  now  had  men  and  means  of  transportation 
upon  which  I  could  depend. 

It  is  indeed  a  lovely  drive  from  Fort  Sill  to  Red 
River.  We  were  rarely  out  of  sight  of  the  impres- 
sive Wichita  Mountains,  which  rise  from  a  sea  of 
green  plains  like  an  islet  in  a  lake.  We  reached  the 
river  on  the  second  day,  and  had  a  mile  of  sand  to 
pull  through.  At  one  time  I  thought  that  we  would 
go  down  in  the  treacherous  quicksands,  but  our 
magnificent  team  of  dark-colored  mules  and  the  skill 
of  the  teamster  carried  us  safely  over.  I  have  since 
seen,  in  the  sands  of  this  same  river,  holes  ten  feet 
deep  which  had  been  dug  to  rescue  wagons  loaded 
with  valuable  goods,  that  had  sunk  down  to  bedrock 
during  high  water. 

When  we  reached  the  beds  of  the  Big  Wichita,  we 
worked  both  Indian  and  Coffee  creeks,  a  few  miles 
apart.  Here  at  last,  after  so  much  toil  and  so  many 
hardships,  I  found  myself  in  the  very  center  of  the 
fossil-bearing  strata,  and  secured  a  number  of  fine 
specimens,  among  them  the  great  salamander  Ery- 
ops,  the  wonderful  fin-backed  lizard  Naosaurus, 
that  peculiar  batrachian  Diplocaulus,  and  other 
forms. 

On  arriving  at  the  fossil  beds,  I  showed  Corporal 
Bromfield  where  I  wanted  him  to  pitch  my  wall  tent, 
and  went  into  the  field  with  Mr.  Wright,  in  search 
of  fossils.  When  I  returned  at  night,  I  found  that 


228          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

the  corporal  had  pitched  my  tent  on  a  level  and  his 
own  A-tent  as  close  to  it  as  he  possibly  could. 
"  This  will  never  do,"  I  said  to  myself.  "  Discipline 
will  go  to  the  dogs,  if  I  allow  such  close  companion- 
ship." So  I  ordered  him  to  take  down  his  tent  and 
pitch  it  a  hundred  yards  away,  and  to  follow  this 
rule  in  future.  The  soldiers  were  very  indignant, 
but  they  obeyed  orders.  As  a  general  rule  I  found 
that  I  could  handle  them,  although  there  were  a  few- 
breaches  of  discipline. 

I  was  so  unfortunate  on  this  expedition  as  to  have 
my  tent  burned,  with  nearly  all  my  personal  prop- 
erty. When  the  men  got  to  the  flaming  tent,  the 
first  thing  they  did  was  to  cut  the  guy-ropes  and  let 
it  blow  over.  They  then,  at  my  request,  brought 
water  and  threw  it  on  the  burning  sacks  that  held 
the  fossils.  This  saved  the  fossils,  but  to  do  so  we 
had  to  let  everything  else  go. 

On  the  twenty-fifth  of  April,  we  started  with  our 
load  for  Decatur,  the  nearest  railroad  point.  We 
took  the  Henrietta  road,  and  camped  on  the  Little 
Wichita,  where,  in  the  sandy  shales  of  the  Upper 
Carboniferous  or  Permian,  we  found  a  locality  rich 
in  the  fossil  flora  of  that  region.  We  secured  a 
number  of  large  fern  fronds,  etc. 

Wild  turkey  were,  as  usual,  abundant.  Lee  Ir- 
ving, one  of  the  escort,  killed  a  hen  and  gobbler,  and 
gave  us  a  change  from  our  customary  diet  of  bacon. 


The  Permian  of  Texas  229 

On  the  fourth  of  May,  after  a  long  journey,  we 
plowed  through  the  valley  named,  and  well  named, 
the  Big  Sandy,  and  passing  through  groves  of  splen- 
did live  oaks,  pecans,  water  elms,  and  locusts, 
reached  Decatur,  the  terminus  of  the  Fort  Worth 
and  Denver  Railroad.  Here  I  delivered  to  the  agent 
my  precious  load  of  fossils,  which  had  cost  me  so 
much  expense,  labor,  and  anxiety,  and  set  out  on  the 
return  trip  to  Fort  Sill;  where,  on  the  twelfth  of 
May,  after  a  journey  without  incident,  I  turned  over 
my  command  to  Major  Henry.  The  next  time  I 
heard  of  this  splendid  officer,  he  was  a  brigadier 
general  in  command  of  Porto  Rico. 


CHAPTER  IX 

EXPEDITIONS  IN  THE  TEXAS  PERMIAN 
FOR  PROFESSOR  COPE,  1895,  1897 

N  the  summer  of  1895,  sixteen  years  after 
my  last  expedition  for  Professor  Cope, 
I  was  employed  by  him  to  make  further 
explorations  in  the  brakes  of  the  Big 
Wichita.  My  assistant  and  cook  was  a  farmer, 
Frank  Galyean  by  name,  who  lived  on  Coffee  Creek 
on  the  Vernon  road,  twenty-five  miles  north  of  Sey- 
mour. I  camped  a  mile  above  his  house  on  the  west 
branch  of  the  creek  at  Willow  Springs,  a  favorite 
camping  ground,  as  it  was  one  of  the  few  places  in 
which  water  was  always  to  be  found.  To  the  west 
rose  Table  Mountain,  a  hill  several  hundred  feet 
high,  and  mountains  of  the  same  height  extended  in 
a  southwesterly  direction  to  Indian  Creek,  about 
four  miles  from  camp. 

I  worked  for  several  weeks  on  Indian  Creek  and 
Coffee  Creek  with  very  poor  returns,  but  on  the 
nineteenth  of  September,  Mr.  Galyean,  who  was  of 
a  sanguine  temperament,  announced  that  he  had  dis- 

230 


Expeditions  in  the  Texas  Permian    231 

covered  the  complete  skeleton  of  a  huge  beast.  So, 
filled  with  high  ropes,  I  followed  his  lead  along  the 
rough  face  of  the  mountains,  until  at  last,  when  we 
were  completely  exhausted  by  the  ruggedness  of  the 
way,  he  pointed  out  a  pile  of  the  weathered  and 
broken  bones  of  a  species  so  common  that  they  were 
not  worth  picking  up. 

Dropping  in  a  moment  from  my  -hill  of  ex- 
pectancy into  a  slough  of  despond,  I  turned  home- 
ward, Mr.  Galyean,  who  was  as  disappointed  as  I 
was,  leading  the  way  to  a  short  cut  through  a  gap  in 
the  mountains.  As  he  got  on  the  trail,  which  had 
been  made  by  animals  on  their  way  to  the  spring,  he 
stooped  and  picked  up  something,  remarking, 
"  Why,  here's  a  bone !  "  I  took  it,  and  was  aston- 
ished to  find  it  a  complete  skull,  covered  with  a  hard 
siliceous  matrix  from  a  heavy  bed  of  Indian  red 
clay,  which  was  completely  covered  with  concre- 
tions. I  had  never  carefully  explored  this  horizon, 
as  I  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  it  was  barren. 
And  I  suppose  that  other  collectors  had  imagined  the 
same,  for  although  it  was  within  a  mile  of  Willow 
Springs,  where  Boll  and  Cummins  and  other  col- 
lectors had  camped  through  a  series  of  years,  I 
was  the  first  to  discover  this  deposit  of  extinct 
animals. 

We  followed  the  trail  over  a  slight  rise  into  an 
amphitheater  a  couple  of  acres  in  extent,  and  then 


232          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

over  a  higher  rise  into  another,  a  little  larger,  carved 
out  of  the  mountain  side  and  entirely  denuded  of 
soil.  These  two  amphitheaters  proved  to  be  the 
richest  fossil  beds  I  ever  discovered  in  the  Permian 
of  Texas.  I  quote  the  following  entry  from  my 
notebook  regarding  this  discovery :  "  After  finding 
the  perfect  skull  discovered  by  Galyean,  we  at  once 
got  into  the  richest  ground  I  have  ever  seen  in  these 
beds.  I  got  a  perfect  skull,  and  Galyean  another. 
We  have  worked  too  low,  it  seems.  This  rich  bone 
bed  is  on  top  of  the  beds  I  have  been  working,  at 
the  heads  of  the  ravines  that  cut  into  the  face  of  the 
mountains.  The  concretions  in  which  the  bones  are 
preserved  are  in  red  clay,  and  are  of  greenish  and 
other  colors." 

In  my  excitement  over  this  rich  find,  I  forgot  my 
disgust  with  Galyean  for  leading  me  on  a  wild-goose 
chase,  forgot  how  tired  I  was,  forgot  my  dinner, 
forgot  everything,  and  set  to  work  at  once  collecting 
skulls  and  bones.  I  remember  that  I  filled  my  col- 
lecting bag  with  seventy-five  pounds  of  skulls,  from 
less  than  an  inch  to  over  eight  inches  in  length,  and 
all  new  to  me  and  to  science.  This  load  I  started  to 
carry  down  the  steep  trail  to  camp,  a  mile  away. 
The  good-natured  Galyean,  when  he  saw  me  totter- 
ing under  the  load,  offered  to  relieve  me  of  my 
burden,  but  I  answered  with  such  vehemence  that 
no  one  should  touch  it,  that  I  would  break  my  back 


Expeditions  in  the  Texas  Permian    233 

first,  that  it  was  more  precious  than  its  weight  in 
gold,  that  he  gave  it  up  and  fled  down  the  mountains 
to  camp,  so  that  he  might  at  least  have  a  warm  meal 
waiting  for  me  when  I  arrived. 

How  can  any  man  who  has  not  had  the  experience 
himself,  realize  the  glory  of  my  triumphal  march 
down  that  rugged  trail?  Not  Nebuchadnezzar, 
when  his  chariot  headed  the  army  that  was  carrying 
away  the  treasures  of  the  Lord's  house  from  Jeru- 
salem, with  the  king  of  Judah,  blinded  and  bound  in 
shackles  of  brass,  in  his  train,  could  have  known  a 
prouder  joy  than  I  did  now  over  this  discovery  of  a 
new  region,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  old,  which 
promised  so  rich  a  harvest  of  rare  fossil  remains. 
This  is  an  instance  of  an  experience  which  has  been 
very  common  in  my  life — when  I  have  been  most 
completely  hopeless  and  discouraged,  I  have  made 
my  greatest  discoveries. 

Of  the  remarkable  batrachians  and  lizards  which 
twelve  million  years  ago  peopled  the  estuaries  and 
bayous  of  the  Permian  ocean  shores,  I  found,  during 
that  three  months'  expedition,  forty-five  complete  or 
nearly  complete  skulls,  many  of  them  with  more  or 
less  perfect  parts  of  the  skeletons  attached,  and 
forty-seven  fragmentary  skulls,  ranging  in  size 
from  less  than  half  an  inch  to  two  feet  in  length; 
the  whole  collection  containing  one  hundred  and 
eighty-three  specimens  of  the  extinct  life  of  the 


234          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Texan  Permian.  The  American  Museum,  which 
secured  this  splendid  material,  was  unable  to  de- 
scribe and  publish  it  then,  while  the  results  of  my 
famous  expedition  to  these  beds  in  1901  for  the 
Royal  Museum  of  Munich  were  at  once  described  by 
Dr.  Broili.  Consequently  the  American  Museum 
lost  much  of  the  glory  which  attaches  to  the  descrip- 
tion of  new  material.  However,  the  Permian  col- 
lection in  the  American  Museum  is  now  being 
worked  out  with  results  of  great  importance  to 
science. 

Encouraged  by  my  success  on  this  expedition,  I 
set  out  with  high  hopes  on  January  twentieth  of  the 
following  year  to  continue  my  work  for  Professor 
Cope  in  these  beds.  On  reaching  my  headquarters 
at  Seymour,  I  succeeded  in  hiring  an  old  man  with  a 
a  team  and  wagon,  and  on  the  twenty-fifth  of 
January,  I  made  my  first  camp  on  Bushy  Creek,  ten 
miles  north  of  Seymour. 

Three  days  later  I  found  what  I  believed 
promised  to  be  a  fine  specimen  of  the  ladder-spined 
reptile,  Naosaurus,  called  fin-backed  by  Cope.  A 
number  of  perfect  spines  were  exposed,  presenting 
the  possibility  of  securing  a  complete  specimen.  I 
worked  very  carefully  over  this  skeleton,  hoping  to 
take  it  out  whole  and  in  good  shape.  It  lay  in  red 
and  white  sandstone,  which  easily  disintegrated  on 
the  surface  into  shale-like  flakes.  The  spines  and 


Expeditions  in  the  Texas  Permian    235 

transverse  projections,  which  terminate  in  rounded 
knobs,  were  all  broken  in  situ,  and  were  also  flexed 
and  tilted  with  the  strata,  so  that  great  care  was 
necessary  in  following  them.  They  were  about 
three  inches  apart.  I  numbered  the  spines  i,  2,  3, 
etc.,  not  with  reference  to  their  natural  position,  but 
to  the  order  in  which  I  came  to  them.  A  good 
many  of  the  rounded  ends  of  the  lateral  spines  were 
missing,  having  been  washed  down  the  slope.  I 
hoped  to  find  them  later. 

As  I  studied  these  remarkable  spines,  many  of 
them,  near  the  center  of  the  body,  three  feet  high, 
with  the  lateral  spines  alternating  or  opposite,  I  in- 
stinctively called  the  creature  the  ladder-spined  rep- 
tile ;  and  I  cannot  see  how  Professor  Cope  could  have 
imagined  that  these  spines  had  any  resemblance  to 
the  mast  and  yard-arms  of  a  vessel,  and  that  there 
was  a  thin  membrane  stretched  between  them  which 
caught  the  breeze  and  acted  as  a  sail.  Later  dis- 
coveries show  it  to  be  a  land  animal.  Professor 
Osborn's  magnificent  restoration  of  the  Naosaurus 
is  shown.  (Fig.  33.) 

As  I  have  said,  it  was  a  long  and  trying  task  to 
take  up  the  skeleton,  as  it  was  in  thousands  of  frag- 
ments. If  I  had  dug  them  up  as  one  would  dig 
potatoes,  no  one  would  ever  have  had  the  patience 
to  put  them  together  again.  So  I  took  up  each 
spine  in  sections,  wrapping  say  fifty  fragments  to- 


236  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

gether,  and  numbering  them  No.  i,  spine  i,  package 
I,  etc. ;  so  that  when  the  whole  collection  came  to  be 
put  together,  the  sections  could  be  mended  separately 
first  and  then  joined  to  one  another. 

The  broken  condition  in  which  I  found  the  skele- 
ton prevented  me  from  realizing  then  how  complete 
and  valuable  it  was;  but  as  I  look  now  at  the  fine 
photograph  of  the  mounted  specimen, — the  only 
mounted  specimen  of  the  Naosanrns  in  the  world 
(Fig.  32),  I  can  see  that  this  expedition  was  indeed 
a  success,  in  spite  of  the  discouragement  which  I 
went  through  at  the  time. 

After  the  discovery  of  the  Naosaurus,  I  was 
obliged  to  spend  weeks  of  work  without  results, 
growing  more  and  more  disheartened  because  I  my- 
self was  fully  persuaded  that  the  search  was  useless. 
Professor  Cope  was  convinced  that  there  was  a 
fossil-bearing  stratum  between  the  Permian  and 
Triassic,  which  would  yield  an  entirely  new  fauna, 
and  he  had  reasoned  out  that  this  ideal  bed  must  be 
located  northwest  of  the  productive  bed  already 
known,  in  the  very  region,  in  fact,  which  I  had  gone 
over  with  such  care  for  the  Museum  of  Comparative 
Zoology  of  Harvard  in  1882,  and  found  barren.  I, 
therefore,  protested  as  strongly  as  I  could  against 
making  the  trip ;  but  he  insisted,  and  his  more  power- 
ful will  won  the  day.  So  I  was  forced  to  spend  a 
month  of  extremely  trying  labor  at  the  head  of 


Expeditions  in  the  Texas  Permian    237 

Crooked  Creek  and  in  the  other  creek  valleys,  north- 
west of  the  productive  beds. 

Here  were  thousands  of  acres  of  denuded  bluffs  of 
red  clay,  cut  into  fantastic  shapes,  often  resembling 
old  fashioned  straw  bee-hives  or  crumbling  towers 
and  battlements.  As  far  as  the  eye  could  reach, 
they  spread  out  along  the  divide  in  ever-varying 
shapes.  The  beds  disintegrated  easily  into  red  mud. 
There  were  no  concretions,  although  the  rock  was 
full  of  concentric  rings,  from  the  sixteenth  of  an 
inch  to  an  inch  in  diameter,  consisting  of  a  round 
white  spot  with  a  red  rim.  The  narrow  dikes  which 
cross  the  thick  deposits  of  clay  are  filled  with  fibrous 
gypsum.  Underneath  the  clay  lie  strata  of  red  and 
white  sandstone  and  compact  concretionary  rock,  all 
barren. 

But  the  discouragement  which  attended  my  un- 
successful search  was  only  one  of  the  trials  with 
which  I  had  to  contend  that  winter.  In  the  first 
place,  the  weather  was  against  me.  It  snowed  or 
rained  continually,  so  that  the  ground  was  never 
dry,  and  I  took  up  ten  or  fifteen  pounds  of  red  mud 
on  each  foot  as  I  walked.  I  came  down  with  a 
severe  attack  of  grippe,  too;  and  to  make  matters 
worse,  my  teamster,  who  was  also  my  cook,  took  a 
particular  dislike  to  my  stove,  which  had  been  manu- 
factured under  my  own  supervision  and  had  always 
proved  satisfactory  with  other  men,  and  insisted 


238          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

upon  doing  all  his  cooking  in  a  trench  outside  the 
tent,  so  that  I  lost  the  heat  which  I  might  have  had 
but  for  his  obstinacy. 

Every  morning  I  climbed  out  of  bed  with  aching 
bones,  and  started  on  my  long  tramp.  At  first  I 
would  hardly  be  able  to  drag  myself  along,  but 
gradually,  as  I  warmed  to  the  work,  I  would  move 
faster,  until  usually  I  got  so  far  away  from  camp 
that  I  should  not  have  been  able  to  return  for  dinner 
without  taking  more  time  than  I  could  afford,  and  so 
went  without  that  meal.  After  working  as  long  as 
I  could  see,  I  would  return  to  my  uncomfortable 
camp,  to  go  through  the  same  performance  on  the 
following  day.  I  had  suffered  from  fever  and  ague 
in  the  fossil  fields  of  Kansas,  and  had  supposed  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  suffer  more,  but  I  found 
the  grippe  even  more  relentless  than  the  ague. 

To  add  to  my  worries,  the  people  at  my  post  office 
had  taken  in  a  family  with  a  malignant  form  of  sore 
eyes,  and  although  I  supplied  them  with  curatives, 
they  would  get  careless.  The  peevish  old  man 
whom  I  had  employed  gave  me  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  too,  at  one  time  threatening  to  leave  me  alone 
in  the  brakes.  In  general,  my  experiences  with 
hired  men  have  taught  me  the  advisability  of  own- 
ing my  own  outfit,  whenever  it  is  possible.  A  hired 
man  knows  how  helpless  one  is  in  the  fossil  fields 
without  transportation,  and  takes  advantage  of  the 


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Expeditions  in  the  Texas  Permian    239 

power  which  that  helplessness  gives  him ;  or  he  looks 
at  things  from  the  hired  man's  point  of  view,  and  if 
he  can  better  his  wages  by  leaving  his  employer, 
thinks  that  he  has  a  perfect  right  to  do  so,  even  if  he 
has  made  a  contract  to  remain. 

After  working  for  weeks  in  accordance  with 
Cope's  instructions,  although  it  was  as  useless  as 
carrying  bricks  from  one  side  of  a  yard  to  the  other 
and  back  again,  I  returned,  worn  and  discouraged, 
to  the  beds  which  produced  at  least  a  few  fossils.  I 
determined,  moreover,  to  give  up  the  field  at  the  end 
of  my  contract,  and  go  home,  and  wrote  a  de- 
spondent letter  to  Cope,  asking  to  be  relieved  when 
the  contract  expired,  as  I  needed  rest.  It  was  then 
that  I  received  the  letter  which  I  publish  here  in 
facsimile,  a  letter  which  I  shall  always  cherish,  not 
only  because  it  shows  the  very  best  side  of  Cope's 
character,  but  because  it  makes  me  feel  that  he 
realized  that  my  life  work  could  not  be  measured  by 
money.  It  gave  me  at  the  time  the  kind  of  encour- 
agement which  I  needed  more  than  any  other,  and 
on  receipt  of  it,  although  I  was  just  ready  to  give 
up  from  exhaustion  and  homesickness,  I  decided  to 
remain  another  month  in  those  barren  fields.  Cope 
promised  that  he  would  never  again  send  me  into  a 
field  against  my  own  judgment;  and  by  having  my 
own  way  again,  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  add  many 
new  specimens  to  the  collection. 


240          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

For  I  was  rewarded,  as  I  have  always  in  my  life 
been  rewarded,  for  my  many  days  of  fruitless  toil, 
by  the  discovery  of  a  long  stretch  of  beds  whose 
brilliant  metallic  color,  the  result  of  a  large  amount 
of  iron  accumulated  by  a  dank  and  luxurious  vegeta- 
tion, testified  that  they  had  once  formed  the  mud  at 
the  bottom  of  a  bayou.  This  old  swamp  proved  to 
have  been  the  habitat  of  countless  salamanders,  and 
thanks  to  this  discovery  I  accomplished  more  during 
the  last  month  of  my  stay  in  Texas  than  during  all 
the  rest  of  the  time  put  together,  leaving  out  of 
account,  of  course,  the  fin-backed  lizard. 

I  take  pleasure  in  showing  my  readers  a  splendid 
skull  (Fig.  34)  after  Broili,  both  the  palatine  and 
superior  exposures  of  one  peculiar  species  of  these 
salamanders,  to  which  Cope  gave  the  name  Diplo- 
caulus  magnicornis.  The  eyes  are  far  down  on  the 
face,  but  with  a  broad  expanse  of  sculptured  bone 
behind,  terminating  in  two  long  "  horns,"  fourteen 
inches  across  from  tip  to  tip,  which  are  merely  the 
greatly  prolonged  corners  of  the  back  of  the  skull. 
There  are  three  rows  of  minute  teeth  in  the  roof  of 
the  mouth,  and  a  couple  of  occipital  condyles.  The 
vertebrae  have  a  double  row  of  spines  down  each  side 
of  the  median  line,  and  the  body  is  long  and  slender 
with  weak  limbs.  The  head  was  the  largest  part  of 
the  creature.  This  species  was  the  most  common  of 
all  those  which  I  discovered  in  the  Permian  beds. 


IG.  34. — FOSSIL  SKULL  OF  GIANT  SALAMANDER,  Diplocaulus  magnicornis. 
Collected  by  Charles  Sternberg  in  1901.     (After  Broili.) 


FIG.  35. — PROFESSOR  HENRY  FAIRFIELD  OSBORN. 


Expeditions  in  the  Texas  Permian    241 

Professor  Cope  used  to  call  the  specimens  "  mud 
heads,"  as  they  were  almost  always  covered  with  a 
thin  coating  of  silicified  mud,  which  was  very  dif- 
ficult to  remove.  In  fact,  nearly  all  the  bones  in 
this  region  were  enclosed  in  a  hard  red  matrix. 

In  the  spring  of  1897,  I  was  again  working  in  the 
Texas  Permian  for  Professor  Cope.  He  was  deeply 
interested  in  the  ancient  fauna  of  the  region,  and  I 
was  sending  him  all  the  finer  specimens  by  express, 
as  I  had  during  the  last  two  years.  On  the  fifteenth 
of  April,  I  was  camping  on  Indian  Creek,  having 
just  completed  a  long  and  trying  journey  of  about  a 
hundred  miles,  around  the  Little  Wichita  and  back 
to  the  main  river  at  Indian  Creek.  During  the  trip 
we  had  encountered  a  terrible  windstorm,  which 
had  threatened  to  carry  away  our  tent,  but  we  had 
weathered  the  gale  and  camped  in  the  timber.  I 
had  gone  to  bed,  but  was  roused  from  my  cot  by  the 
arrival  of  a  livery-man,  who  had  been  hunting  for 
me  all  the  day  before.  He  handed  me  a  message 
from  Mrs.  Cope,  announcing  the  death  of  her  hus- 
band on  the  twelfth  of  April. 

I  had  lost  friends  before,  and  had  known  what  it 
was  to  bury  my  own  dead,  even  my  firstborn  son, 
but  I  had  never  sorrowed  more  deeply  than  I  did 
now  over  the  news  that  in  the  very  prime  of  life,  in 
the  noonday  of  his  glorious  intellectual  achieve- 
ments, as  he  was  bending  all  his  energies  to  the 


242          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

study  and  description  of  the  wonderful  fauna  of  the 
Texas  Permian,  the  greatest  naturalist  in  America 
had  passed  away  with  his  work  undone.  Death  is 
terrible  always,  but  it  seems  especially  so  when  it 
strikes  down  men  in  the  highest  rank  of  intelligence, 
who  are  adding  every  day  to  the  world's  knowledge. 

I  was  Cope's  assistant  in  the  field  for  eight  sea- 
sons, and  while  we  did  not  always  agree,  I  consider 
the  work  which  I  did  for  him  my  most  valuable 
service  to  science.  It  has  often  been  my  good 
fortune  to  supply  him  with  some  important  link  in 
the  line  of  descent  of  vertebrate  life, — such  as,  for 
instance,  the  famous  batrachian  genera  Dissorophus 
and  Otoccrfus,  reptiles  with  a  carapace,  indicating  the 
line  of  descent  of  turtles  from  batrachians,  or  the 
camel  from  the  John  Day  beds,  with  the  metacarpals 
and  metatarsals  distinct, — and  to  furnish  him  with 
a  large  number  of  other  forms  which,  with  the 
material  secured  by  his  other  collectors,  helped  him 
to  acquire  what  Dr.  Osborn  has  so  truthfully  called 
"  a  masterly  knowledge  of  each  type." 

It  is  largely  due  to  his  efforts  that  the  great 
science  of  paleontology,  which,  within  my  remem- 
brance, had  but  few  votaries,  is  now  considered  one 
of  the  most  interesting  studies  of  modern  times. 
Well  did  he  prophesy,  "  After  us  there  will  be  more 
demand  for  our  wares  " ;  how  well  one  can  fully 
realize  only  when  one  remembers  that  the  great 


Expeditions  in  the  Texas  Permian    243 

American  Museum  (whose  department  of  paleon- 
tology under  the  able  management  of  Dr.  Henry  F. 
Osborn  (Fig.  35)  is  now  one  of  the  glories  of 
science),  that  the  Carnegie  Museum  in  Pittsburg 
and  the  Field  Columbian  in  Chicago  and  the 
Museums  of  Yale  and  Harvard  and  Princeton,  be- 
sides many  others  both  here  and  in  Europe  have 
been  largely  built  up  since  he  wrote  those  words. 
One  thing  is  certain — as  long  as  science  lasts,  and 
men  love  to  study  the  animals  of  the  present  and  of 
the  past,  Cope's  name  and  work  will  be  remembered 
and  revered. 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  show  a  good  photograph 
of  this  lamented  naturalist  (Fig.  15).  Peace  be  to 
his  ashes! 


CHAPTER  X 

IN  THE  RED  BEDS  OF  TEXAS  FOR  THE 
ROYAL  MUSEUM  OF  MUNICH,  1901 


ARNED  by  my  experiences  in  the  red 
beds  of  Texas  without  a  team  of  my 
own,  when  I  made  a  contract  to  conduct 
an  expedition  there  under  the  direction  of 
Dr.  von  Zittel  of  the  Paleontological  Museum  of 
Munich,  I  resolved  to  ship  my  own  horses  and  outfit 
to  the  field.  I  gave  them  into  the  charge  of  my  son 
George,  who  was  rapidly  becoming  a  most  valuable 
assistant,  and  saw  him  put  them  aboard  a  freight  car 
and  get  in  himself.  The  next  time  I  saw  him  was 
at  Rush  Springs  in  the  Indian  Territory,  on  top  of  a 
freight  car,  skilled  in  all  the  lore  of  a  brakeman. 

We  reached  the  old  camp  at  Willow  Springs  on 
the  thirtieth  of  June,  1901.  The  heat  had  already 
set  in,  promising  the  hottest  season  that  I  had  ever 
experienced  in  the  valley  of  the  Big  Wichita.  It 
grew  more  and  more  intense  as  the  months  passed, 
the  mercury  often  rising  to  113  in  the  shade.  All 
the  water  dried  up  in  both  the  natural  and  the  arti- 
ficial tanks,  and  the  short  buffalo  grass  in  the  pas- 

244 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        245 

tures  curled  up  and  blew  away.  We  were  camped 
in  Wagoner's  great  pasture,  twenty-five  miles  wide 
by  fifty  long,  and  I  saw  cattle  die  of  thirst  and  star- 
vation. Some  had  become  so  hungry  that  they  had 
eaten  the  prickly  pear,  spines  and  all,  and  their 
mouths  were  full  of  putrefying  sores  where  the 
spines  had  worked  out. 

The  ground  was  hot,  and  the  air  like  the  breath  of 
a  furnace ;  and  we  had  to  haul  all  the  water  we  used 
in  camp  from  six  to  twenty  miles.  To  add  to  our 
troubles,  one  of  our  horses,  Baby,  almost  cut  off  her 
foot  in  a  wire  fence  while  striking  at  the  flies, 
which,  during  the  day,  never  ceased  to  torture  man 
and  beast.  Even  at  night  the  horned  cattle  were  not 
free  from  them,  for  they  clustered  around  the  base 
of  the  horns,  fifteen  or  twenty  deep,  like  hives  of 
swarming  bees,  for  rest. 

The  country  was  indeed  a  desert  and  deserted. 
All  the  people  who  had  settled  this  valley  on  Coffee 
Creek  or  other  streams,  had  gone  never  to  return; 
the  cowman  had  bought  up  all  the  homesteads. 
The  schoolhouse  in  which  I  had  so  often  attended 
worship  had  been  moved  from  its  foundations,  and 
the  houses  that  had  once  echoed  to  the  merry  cries 
of  children,  stood  empty  and  desolate. 

How  can  I  describe  the  hot  winds,  carrying  on 
their  wings  clouds  of  dust,  which  were  so  common 
that  year  and  the  next?  I  once  went  to  Godwin 


246  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Creek,  south  of  Seymour,  passing  on  the  way  a 
hundred-acre  field  of  corn.  It  belonged  to  an  old 
man,  who  had  cultivated  it  until  it  was  perfectly 
clean,  and  the  long  rows  of  living  green  were  beauti- 
ful to  see.  When  I  passed  it  again  on  my  way  back, 
a  hot  wind  was  blowing,  so  hot  that  I  had  to  shield 
my  face  and  eyes  to  keep  them  from  burning.  The 
beautiful  field,  upon  which  the  old  man  had  looked 
with  so  many  hopes  of  a  rich  harvest,  had  been 
scorched  and  seared  as  if  by  a  blast  of  fire. 

So  the  weeks  lengthened  into  months,  and  the 
merciless  sky  still  refused  us  rain.  At  our  camp 
on  Coffee  Creek  the  heat  was  so  terrible  that  we 
could  not  keep  eggs,  butter,  or  milk,  or  many  other 
edibles  necessary  to  comfort  and  health.  The  re- 
sult was  that  my  stomach  soon  got  out  of  order, 
and  a  severe  attack  of  biliousness  set  in,  attended  by 
an  incessant  longing  for  a  drink  of  cold,  pure  water. 
I  thought  by  day  and  dreamed  by  night  of  the  well 
on  my  farm  at  home,  with  the  clear  water  dripping 
from  the  bucket ;  for  our  only  drink,  except  coffee, 
was  the  warm,  foul-tasting  water  which  had  been 
brought  in  a  barrel  from  twenty  miles  away  and  had 
soon  become  stale.  Even  that  was  always  giving 
out  at  inconvenient  times.  Whenever  we  came  to  a 
new  fossil  locality,  and  the  hope  was  strong  within 
me  that  now  we  would  make  a  rich  find,  George  was 
sure  to  say,  "  Papa,  we're  out  of  water,"  and  we 


PALAEONTOLOGIST 
DBS  STAATES. 


Alte  Akademie. 


y 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas       247 

had  to  make  the  long  journey  through  the  awful 
heat  over  the  dust-laden  roads  to  the  well  at  Sey- 
mour, twenty  miles  away.  When  we  reached  it  at 
last,  how  we  buried  our  faces  in  the  bucket  and  the 
cool  water ! 

But  I  will  not  dwell  on  this  side  of  the  picture, 
because  there  is  another  side.  We  were  finding  in 
wonderful  abundance  the  material  which  we  had 
come  to  secure,  and  the  hardships  were  forgotten  in 
the  joy  of  success.  In  spite  of  the  many  obstacles 
with  which  we  had  to  contend,  we  secured  the  collec- 
tion described  in  that  great  letter  from  Dr.  von  Zit- 
tel  which  I  publish  here  in  facsimile  and  which  I 
prize  more  than  any  letter  I  ever  received. 

Before  I  accepted  von  Zittel's  offer  that  I  should 
conduct  an  expedition  for  him  in  the  brakes  of  the 
Big  Wichita,  I  wrote  to  him,  telling  him  how  my 
work  for  science  had  had,  from  a  material  stand- 
point, no  great  returns.  My  life,  I  said,  had  been  a 
constant  struggle  to  secure  sufficient  funds  to  carry 
on  the  work,  and  the  men  who  had  bought  my 
material  had  for  the  most  part  felt  that  they  were 
doing  good  service  to  their  museums  by  securing  it 
at  the  lowest  possible  price,  without  taking  into  con- 
sideration that  even  a  fossil  hunter  has  to  live. 

It  was  with  pleasure  indeed  that  I  received  the 
answer  of  this  great  German,  whose  works  on  pale- 
ontology are  used  as  text-books  in  our  universities. 


248          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

Dr.  von  Zittel  wrote :  "  I  am  sorry  that  from  your 
letter  you  do  not  consider  yourself  in  a  position  to 
work  for  the  Munich  Museum  in  Texas  this  spring. 
I  can  readily  understand  that  after  your  long  ac- 
tivity in  scientific  fields  without  material  results  you 
are  somewhat  discouraged  and  embittered,  and  feel 
that  your  services  in  this  direction  have  not  been 
sufficiently  appreciated.  For  my  part,  I  have  done 
my  best  to  give  you  credit  for  the  scientific  side  of 
your  work,  and  your  collections  from  Kansas 
and  Texas  in  the  Munich  Museum  will  always  be 
an  everlasting  memorial  to  the  name  of  Charles 
Sternberg." 

Such  a  letter,  from  a  man  like  von  Zittel,  put  new 
life  and  courage  into  my  veins,  as  a  similar  letter 
from  Professor  Cope  had  once  before,  and  made  me 
feel  that  a  little  suffering  more  or  less  mattered 
nothing  when  measured  with  such  enduring  results. 
Cope  is  dead  and  von  Zittel  is  dead,  so  far  as  such 
men  can  die,  but  I  have  preserved  their  letters  as 
heirlooms  for  my  children's  children;  for  they 
testify  that  "  no  matter  what  the  common  herd  may 
say  about  me,"  I  have  accomplished  the  object  which 
I  set  before  myself  as  a  boy,  and  have  done  my 
humble  part  toward  building  up  the  great  science  of 
paleontology.  I  shall  perish,  but  my  fossils  will  last 
as  long  as  the  museums  that  have  secured  them. 

But  to  return  to  the  Texas  Permian.     I  will  fol- 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        249 

low  my  notebook  for  a  while,  as  that,  perhaps,  is 
the  best  way  to  give  my  readers  an  idea  of  our  life 
there. 

On  the  eleventh  of  July  I  was  in  Seymour.  I 
write :  "  A  big  dust  storm  struck  the  town,  and  this 
evening  a  rain  is  falling.  This  is  indeed  a  great  re- 
lief to  me,  as  it  will  make  the  air  cooler  and  give  me 
water  in  the  brakes,  so  that  I  can  visit  localities  I 
could  not  before.  My  wagon,  brought  from  Kan- 
sas, is  a  narrow-gauge  one,  and  all  the  roads  in 
Texas  are  cut  by  broad-gauge  wagons.  This  forces 
my  team  to  pull  with  one  set  of  wheels  in  the  rut 
and  the  other  outside.  Consequently  the  labor  is 
wearing  them  out,  in  connection  with  the  awful 
heat.  I  am,  therefore,  having  new  axles  made,  a 
long  and  tedious  work,  and  I  am  resting  out  of  the 
heat.  Jesse  S.  Williamson  has  told  me  to  occupy 
the  building  owned  by  himself  and  Will  Minnich. 
It  is  a  little  cabin  within  a  mile  of  the  bone  bed  near 
Willow  Springs.  It  has  a  tank  of  water  for  the 
horses,  and  is  but  a  mile  away  from  the  schoolhouse, 
where  a  well  has  been  dug.  A  few  bucketsful  a 
day,  enough  for  camp  use,  trickles  into  it."  This 
cabin  proved  to  be  a  great  accommodation,  especially 
as  the  owners  had  a  stack  of  sorghum,  which  was 
placed  at  my  disposal  and  saved  me  the  trouble  of 
hauling  out  hay. 

As  one  of  my  spindles  was  broken,  I  had  to  send 


250          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

to  Lawrence  for  another,  and  it  was  not  until  the 
sixteenth  that  I  got  my  wagon  from  the  shop.  I 
then  drove  out  to  my  old  camp  on  Grey  Creek  in 
Mr.  Craddock's  pasture.  Here,  too,  was  the  center 
of  a  field  from  which  I  had  reaped  a  rich  harvest  for 
Professor  Cope. 

On  the  seventeenth,  my  notebook  states  that  I  was 
in  the  field  all  day  and  found  fragments  of  skeletons 
and  skulls,  all  broken  to  pieces  and  mixed  up  to- 
gether. I  could  not  find  the  horizon  from  which 
these  specimens  came.  They  were  all  piled  together 
with  concretions  in  a  long,  narrow  wash,  while 
above  there  was  a  level  denuded  tract  covered  with 
concretions.  The  only  way  in  which  I  can  account 
for  the  mixture  of  fragmentary  specimens  is  that  a 
bone  bed  lay  above  the  level  stretch,  and  in  the  dis- 
integration of  the  deposit,  the  fragments  were  car- 
ried by  floods  into  the  narrow  gulch,  until  not  a  sign 
of  the  original  bed  was  left  to  mark  its  site. 

I  had  sent  a  large  collection  from  this  same  lo- 
cality to  Professor  Cope,  and  he  had  been  much  in- 
terested, but  had  also  been  extremely  tantalized  by  the 
fact  that  there  were  great  numbers  of  fragmentary 
skulls,  and  that  although  the  fragments  looked 
freshly  broken,  none  of  the  pieces  could  be  united  to 
form  a  perfect  skull.  I  now  found  the  same  trouble 
again.  Possibly  some  of  the  missing  fragments  of 
the  skulls  in  Cope's  collection,  now  in  the  American 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        251 

Museum,  may  be  in  the  lot  sent  to  Munich,  and  vice 
versa. 

On  the  nineteenth,  I  found  the  nearly  perfect  skull 
of  a  new  species,  and  on  the  twentieth,  another  very 
fine  skull  near  the  locality  from  which  I  had  secured 
the  many  fragments  a  day  or  two  before.  It  was  a 
skull  of  the  great  salamander,  Eryops  megacepha- 
lus  Cope.  There  were  six  pairs  of  large  teeth  in 
the  roof  of  the  mouth,  and  a  single  row  of  various 
sizes  in  the  mandibles.  Some  of  the  points  had 
been  broken  off  and  were  lost.  The  skull  is  over 
twenty  inches  long.  All  the  bones  are  beautifully 
sculptured  on  the  external  surface.  A  few  years 
before  I  had  found  a  nearly  complete  skeleton  of 
this  creature,  some  twelve  feet  in  length,  lying  at 
right  angles  to  the  Chisholm  Trail.  It  was  preserved 
in  hard  concretions,  and  had  weathered  out  on  the 
slope  of  a  hill.  The  feet  of  countless  cattle,  just 
starting  out  on  their  weary  journey  for  Kansas  and 
the  North,  had  worn  away  the  solid  siliceous 
envelope  to  the  bones. 

How  the  salamander  tribe  has  degenerated  since 
the  days  of  these  powerful  creatures!  Supplied 
with  both  gills  and  lungs,  they  dominated  land  and 
water,  and  increasing  and  multiplying  in  the  tropical 
atmosphere,  filled  the  swamps  and  bayous  of  this 
region.  To-day  we  pull  from  some  well  or  spring  a 
weak  creature  called  a  mud  puppy,  and  it  is  hard  to 


252          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

realize  that  its  ancestors,  twelve  million  years  ago, 
were  strong  and  mighty,  the  monarchs  of  creation. 

To  return  to  Mr.  Craddock's  pasture;  on  July 
twentieth  my  notes  read :  "  I  am  suffering  from  the 
heat,  my  tongue  badly  coated.  However,  I  have  got 
some  splendid  material.  If  I  succumb  to  the  awful 
heat  and  die,  my  discoveries  will  have  done  much 
toward  enriching  the  collection  at  Munich." 

On  July  twenty-first,  I  continue :  "  It  is  fearfully 
hot  to-day,  and  I  cannot  work  the  beds  without  great 
suffering.  I  found  a  little  skull." 

The  hot  weather  continued,  and  I  went  out  to  the 
cabin  on  Coffee  Creek.  Pet,  our  four-year-old,  got 
away,  and  when  George  took  her  from  a  herd  of 
horses,  he  found  a  big  hole  in  her  shoulder.  "  Both 
horses  are  failing  fast,"  my  notes  read.  "  Have  to 
send  George  in  for  feed.  It  is  hard  on  the  team  to 
have  to  haul  a  load  this  weather  through  dust  knee- 
deep,  with  no  water  fit  to  drink." 

On  the  twenty-sixth,  I  was  left  alone,  and  went  a 
mile  north  to  the  bone  bed  and  began  to  dig  into  the 
face  of  a  hard  greenish  layer  of  clay-stone,  near  a 
place  where  I  had  found  some  fragments  in  former 
years.  I  was  delighted  to  find  a  pocket  with  two 
good  skulls  in  situ,  and  the  next  day  George  re- 
turned with  his  load,  and  I  had  some  fresh  water, 
which  soon,  however,  grew  lukewarm.  We  found 
two  more  skulls  in  the  pocket  referred  to,  one  of 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        253 

which  was  the  Labidosaurus  hamatus  Cope,  one  of 
the  earliest  of  reptiles.  Another  was  that  of  a  new 
genus  and  species  which  I  found  later,  when  we 
went  back  to  Grey  Creek  to  get  a  camp  ready  to  re- 
ceive Dr.  Broili.  He  was  to  come  directly  from 
Munich  to  my  camp  in  the  red  beds. 

On  the  first  of  August,  as  we  were  out  of  pro- 
visions, we  went  into  town.  I  rented  a  large  room 
over  a  store  building,  and  made  tables  and  unpacked 
specimens  for  Dr.  Broili's  inspection.  While  I  was 
working  there,  a  storm  of  grasshoppers  struck  the 
building,  beating  against  it  like  hailstones;  and  the 
next  morning  the  ground  was  covered  with  them. 

On  the  fifth,  we  drove  out  to  our  old  camp  on 
Grey  Creek,  and  pitched  two  tents  with  the  fly 
stretched  between.  The  walls  were  elevated,  and 
we  were  able  to  make  a  shade  against  the  rays  of  the 
relentless  sun.  I  went  a  couple  of  miles  north,  over 
the  table  mountain  above  camp,  and  found  two  ex- 
tremely beautiful  skulls  of  the  long-horned  am- 
phibian,* Diplocaulus  magnicornis  Cope,  a  strange 
animal  of  which  I  have  already  spoken.  I  found 
also  a  specimen  of  the  gar-pike,  that  ancient  fish 
which  has  left  its  enameled  scales  in  the  rocks  of 
many  formations,  whose  descendants  are  still  living 
in  our  rivers. 

On  the  eighth  of  August,  in  spite  of  the  debilitat- 
*  See  Fig.  34. 


254          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

ing  heat,  I  started  on  a  long  trip  to  the  head  of 
Brushy  Creek,  on  horseback.  I  climbed  Table 
Mountain,  which  was,  perhaps,  three  hundred  feet 
above  the  camp,  and  struck  west  along  the  divide 
between  the  two  creeks.  I  frequently  left  the  horse 
tied  to  a  fence,  while  I  plunged  down  into  the  gorges 
on  either  side.  At  last,  about  three  miles  northwest 
of  camp,  at  the  bend  of  a  branch  of  Brushy  Creek,  I 
noticed  a  denuded  tract  of  the  kind  of  bed  I  have 
already  described,  to  which  an  abundance  of  bog 
iron  lent  a  metallic  luster;  the  very  place  to  look 
for  fossils. 

The  first  thing  I  found  was  the  perfect  skull,  six 
inches  long,  of  a  batrachian  (Diplocaulus  copei 
Broili) ;  then,  lying  on  the  surface,  another  beautiful 
skull  ( V aranosaurus  acutirostris  Broili),  with 
many  of  the  bones  of  the  skeleton,  from  which  the 
hard  red  matrix  had  been  washed  off  clean.  The 
upper  and  lower  jaws  were  locked  together,  and  the 
long  row  of  glistening  teeth  shone  in  the  fierce  light. 
The  eyes  were  set  far  back,  and  the  nose  openings 
were  near  the  front.  It  was  so  different  from  any- 
thing I  had  ever  seen  before  that  I  was  sure  it  must 
be  new.  Dr.  Broili,  in  describing  it,  speaks  of  it 
as  the  most  perfect  specimen  ever  found  in  these 
beds.  Nearly  all  the  other  skulls  I  had  secured  are 
compressed  vertically,  while  this  was  compressed 
laterally. 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        255 

I  found  in  this  bed  hundreds  of  fragments  of  rock 
filled  with  the  glittering  scales  of  fishes,  as  brilliant 
now  as  in  the  days  when  they  covered  the  bodies  of 
these  old  fish.  Here,  also,  I  discovered  a  huge 
specimen  of  the  long-horned  species  (Diplocanlus 
magnicornisf),  and  others  much  smaller,  which 
proved  to  be  the  new  Diplocaulus  copei.  "  This," 
my  notes  say,  "  promises  to  be  one  of  the  finest 
localities  I  have  found,  and  pays  for  the  days  of 
search  under  trying  conditions." 

When  I  reached  camp,  I  found  that  George  also 
had  had  a  red-letter  day,  and  had  found  a  bone  bed 
of  minute  animals  on  some  brakes  of  Grey  Creek 
under  the  roots  of  the  grass  in  a  washout.  He 
brought  in  a  skull,  the  smallest  I  had  ever  collected, 
with  a  great  many  broken  bones  and  teeth.  One 
specimen,  which  Dr.  Broili  named  in  my  honor 
,Cardicephalus  sternbergi,  was  not  over  half  an  inch 
long.  I  secured  here  six  skulls  of  the  new  Diplo- 
caulus copei,  also. 

On  Monday,  the  twelfth  of  August,  Dr.  Broili 
reached  Seymour,  and  George  and  I  met  him  at  the 
station.  A  tall,  strong,  fine-looking  German,  with 
a  full  beard,  he  impressed  me  very  favorably.  The 
great  difficulty  was  that,  owing  to  my  deaf  ear,  it 
was  very  hard  for  me  to  understand  his  broken 
English,  and  unfortunately  I  could  not  speak  a  word 
of  German.  I  judged  that  he  had  learned  his 


256          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

English  from  an  Englishman  and  not  from  an 
American,  as  he  used  a  peculiar  brogue  with  which 
I  was  not  familiar.  George  learned  to  understand 
him  better,  and  they  became  the  best  of  friends. 

We  went  back  to  camp,  where  we  had  the  pleasure 
of  Dr.  Broili's  company  for  two  weeks,  during 
which  I  formed  a  friendship  which  I  have  always 
deeply  appreciated.  He  was  delighted  with  my 
work  and  the  material  we  had  secured,  but,  as  he 
says  in  the  introduction  to  his  great  work  describ- 
ing my  material,  he  could  not  stand  the  heat. 

He  describes  part  of  my  material  in  his  splendid 
work  on  the  Permian  Stegocephala  and  reptiles, 
published  in  Stuttgart,  with  one  hundred  and  twenty 
pages  of  text  and  thirteen  fine  plates.  He  says  on 
p.i :  "  The  excellent  results  of  the  expedition  of  Mr. 
Sternberg  in  the  spring  of  1901  to  Texas,  which 
brought  many  very  valuable  specimens  of  Eryops, 
Dimetroden,  and  Labidosaurus  to  the  Paleontologi- 
cal  Museum's  collection,  caused  the  conservator  of 
the  Royal  Paleontological  Collection,  Councillor  von 
Zittel,  to  send  out  in  the  year  of  1901  a  second  ex- 
pedition to  the  Permian  beds  of  the  same  territory, 
he  being  again  successful  in  securing  Mr.  Charles 
Sternberg,  the  excellent  collector  from  Lawrence, 
Kansas.  Already  in  June  of  the  same  year  he  was 
in  the  midst  of  his  sphere  of  activity  in  the  Wichita 
Permian  beds,  near  the  small  town  of  Seymour, 


FIG.  36. — DR.  KARL  VON  ZITTEL. 

Born  September  25,  1839.     Died  January  5,  1904. 

(After  Pampeckj.) 


FIG.  37. — SHELL  OF  Toxochelys  bauri? 
Discovered  by  Charles  Sternberg  in  Gove  Co.,  Kansas.     (After  Weiland.) 


FIG.  38. — NIOBRARA  GROUP,  CRETACEOUS  CHALK  WITH  CAP 
ROCK  OF  LOUP  FORK  TERTIARY,  KNOWN  AS  CASTLE 
ROCK,  GOVE  Co.,  KANSAS.  (Photo,  by  McClung.) 


FIG.  39. — CHALK  OF  KANSAS,  KNOWN  AS  THE  COFFEE  MILL. 
HELL  CREEK. 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        257 

Baylor  County,  located  on  a  branch  of  the  Fort 
Worth  and  Denver  Railroad.  On  my  arrival  in  the 
camp,  through  the  assistance  of  the  Royal  Bavarian 
Academy  of  Science,  it  was  made  possible  for  me  to 
take  part  in  the  collection  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  August.  I  found  already  a  very  good  collec- 
tion of  very  rich  materials,  which,  besides  parts  of 
Dimetredon,  Labidosaurus,  Pariotichus,  and  other 
Theromorphs,  included  an  excellent  collection  of 
different  examples  of  Diplocaulus,  of  which  some 
still  possessed  the  greater  part  of  the  vertebrae. 
During  my  stay  in  that  territory,  our  work  princi- 
pally consisted  in  making  collections  from  our  camp. 
We  were  compelled,  on  account  of  scarcity  of  water 
from  the  great  heat,  to  keep  near  Seymour." 

I  am  a  patriot,  and  it  would  have  pleased  me  to 
see  all  these  splendid  examples  of  ancient  life  enrich 
our  home  museums ;  but  Germany  is  my  fatherland, 
at  least  it  was  the  fatherland  of  my  fathers,  and  I 
am  glad  to  have  been  able  to  build  up  there  the  best 
collection  of  Kansas  and  Texas  forms  in  Europe. 

One  of  the  greatest  prizes  of  the  Munich  Collec- 
tion is  a  skeleton  of  Labidosaurus,  now  mounted 
there  and  collected  by  myself.  Labidosaurus  is  im- 
portant because  it  belongs  to  a  very  ancient  and 
primitive  group  of  reptiles,  which,  according  to 
Prof.  H.  F.  Osborn  and  other  authorities,  were  the 
ancestors  of  all  the  later  forms  of  reptiles. 


258  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

After  Dr.  Broili  left  to  return  to  Munich,  I  con- 
tinued my  work,  camping  on  east  Coffee  Creek. 
Here  again  our  search  was  rewarded.  I  found  an- 
other bone  bed  of  very  small  lizards,  some  of  them, 
I  think,  not  over  six  inches  long.  The  skulls  ranged 
in  size  from  less  than  half  an  inch  to  an  inch  in 
length.  Cope  has  given  them  the  name  Lysorophus 
tricarinatus.  Drs.  Broili  and  Case  in  their  valuable 
papers  have  shown  that  this  Lysorophus  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  genera  of  all  this  wonderful  fauna, 
since  in  the  structure  of  the  skull  it  is  a  veritable 
"  missing  link  "  between  the  batrachia  and  reptilia. 

The  deposit  in  which  I  found  the  Lysorophus 
was  large,  containing  thousands  of  bones  and  many 
fine  skulls.  I  am  convinced  that  these  creatures 
must  have  hibernated,  as  many  of  them  were  coiled 
in  a  circle  in  an  envelope  of  hardened  mud,  and 
appear  to  have  lain  down  never  to  wake  again,  each 
tiny  reptile  and  its  nest  having  been  preserved 
through  all  the  ages  since.  The  flesh,  of  course, 
decayed  soon  after  death,  but  by  the  process  of 
petrification  the  bones  have  been  replaced  by  stone. 

Now  I  have  always  wanted  to  explain  to  a  popular 
audience  what  this  process  of  petrification  really  is. 
The  word  petrification  should  be  dropped  from  our 
vocabulary,  because  it  signifies  an  impossibility.  I 
remember,  as  a  boy,  translating  from  the  Latin  a 
sentence  like  this—"  His  bones  became  stone/'  that 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        259 

is,  turned  to  stone,  and  one  often  hears  the  expres- 
sion petrified  wood  as  meaning  wood  which  has 
turned  to  stone;  as  if  there  were  a  process  in  nature 
by  which  one  substance  could  be  turned  into  another, 
as  the  philosopher's  stone  would  have  changed  iron 
to  gold.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  process  denoted 
by  the  word  petrifkation  is  a  process  of  replacement, 
not  of  transmutation.  After  the  death  of  these 
ancient  animals  and  the  decay  of  their  flesh,  the 
water  that  passed  through  the  bones  carried  from 
the  cells  of  which  they  were  made  up  the  organic 
contents  which  decay,  and  left  in  their  place  deposits 
of  the  silica  or  lime  which  it  held  in  solution.  The 
same  process  continued  when  the  lagoon  bed  was 
elevated  above  the  water  as  solid  rock.  The  rain- 
water, seeping  down  through  rock  and  fossil  alike, 
left  in  the  bone  cells  the  mineral  matter  it  was  carry- 
ing, until  they  were  filled  with  it.  Then,  in  process 
of  time,  the  cell  walls  are  broken  down  and  rebuilt 
with  silica  or  lime,  and  complete  fossilization,  or 
petrifaction  as  it  is  called,  takes  place,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  fossil  bones  in  the  Texas  Permian.  I  found 
one  specimen  of  the  ladder-spined  reptile  in  which 
the  bones  had  been  entirely  replaced  by  iron  ore,  and 
others  made  up  of  silica. 

How  long  does  it  take  for  the  mineral  matter  to 
replace  entirely  the  original  bones?  Ages  upon 
ages.  I  found  on  the  plains  of  Kansas  a  quarry  of 


26 o          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

elephant  bones,  from  which  I  took  over  two  hundred 
teeth  of  the  Columbian  mammoth,  some  of  the 
larger  ones  weighing  fourteen  pounds  each.  The 
broken  bones  were  scattered  by  the  ton  through  the 
matrix.  I  had  them  analyzed  by  Dr.  Bailey,  the 
head  of  the  chemical  department  of  Kansas  State 
University,  and  he  found  only  ten  per  cent,  of  silici- 
fied  matter  in  them;  that  is,  they  were  only  ten  per 
cent,  less  rich  in  phosphate  of  lime  than  Armour's 
ground  bone  meal.  This  great  elephant  lived  about 
the  time  of  the  Ohio  mastodon,  whose  bones  have 
been  found  in  such  a  position  as  to  indicate  that  they 
were  buried  when  Niagara  Falls  were  six  miles  be- 
low their  present  site.  So  if  we  knew  how  long  it 
has  taken  the  river  to  dig  six  miles  of  its  big  ditch, 
we  could  tell  how  long  it  has  taken  to  impregnate 
the  bones  of  the  mammoths  in  central  Kansas  with 
ten  per  cent,  of  silica.  How  foolish,  then,  to  speak 
of  completely  petrified  men,  when  man  had  proba- 
bly not  made  his  appearance  in  America  at  the  time 
of  the  mammoths. 

The  rocks  of  the  Texas  Permian,  as  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned,  are  of  red  clay  filled  with  concre- 
tions of  every  conceivable  form.  I  remember  once 
rounding  a  butte  and  seeing  before  me  hundreds  of 
cocoanuts,  some  whole  and  others  with  the  brownish 
shells  broken,  showing  the  white  meat  within.  Ab- 
sent-mindedly, I  sprang  from  my  horse  to  feast 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        261 

upon  them,  to  find  that  they  were  concretions  which 
had  so  closely  imitated  cocoanuts  in  shape  and  color 
that  even  I,  an  experienced  collector,  had  been  mo- 
mentarily deceived.  I  knew,  too,  of  a  man  who  ex- 
hibited a  collection  of  large  concretions  as  fossil 
Hubbard  squashes,  and  I  heard  no  one  doubting  that 
they  were  all  that  their  labels  claimed. 

There  are  two  distinct  formations  in  the  Permian 
of  this  part  of  Texas  which  give  character  to  the 
surface  of  the  country.  They  are  as  different  as  if 
separated  by  hundreds  of  miles.  I  visited  one  lo- 
cality on  Pony  Creek,  where  the  red  beds  lay  on  top 
of  the  gray  beds  conformably.  Looking  to  the 
west,  a  vast  panorama,  desolate  and  forlorn,  of 
crumbling  and  denuded  bluffs,  narrow  valleys,  and 
beetling  crags,  spread  out  before  me,  with  the  usual 
red  color  dominant  everywhere,  its  monotony  re- 
lieved only  here  and  there  by  the  green  of  some 
stunted  mesquite  or  patch  of  grass.  To  the  east 
stretched  the  narrow  valley  of  Pony  Creek,  whose 
topography  is  the  same  as  that  which  is  so  familiar 
to  the  residents  of  eastern  Kansas — a  ledge  of  gray 
sandstone  forming  a  narrow  escarpment  on  either 
side  and  following  the  trend  of  the  hills  around  the 
ravines,  with  grass  coming  down  in  gentle  swells  to 
meet  it  or  rising  to  it  from  the  bottom  lands  below. 
The  greatest  thickness  of  this  sandstone,  as  I  ob- 
served it,  was  at  the  head  of  a  narrow  gulch  near  my 


262  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

camp  in  the  creek  bottom,  eight  miles  north  of  Sey- 
mour. I  made  a  section  there  and  sent  samples  of 
the  rock  to  Munich. 

I  observed  this  rock  under  peculiar  circumstances, 
and  found  that  it  solved  an  interesting  problem— 
that  of  the  water  supply  of  the  red  beds.  I  dis- 
covered why  the  water  that  falls  where  these  beds 
only  are  exposed  runs  off  soon  after  a  shower,  ex- 
cept when  caught  in  natural  or  artificial  tanks,  so 
that  there  are  no  wells  or  springs  in  the  red  beds, 
while  in  the  gray  beds  there  are  always  springs  and 
streams  of  running  water. 

In  the  September  of  my  1901  expedition,  the 
heaviest  rain  since  May  fell  in  torrents  for  an  hour 
and  a  half;  water  lay  everywhere  on  the  surface  of 
the  ground.  But  soon  after  the  rain  stopped,  it  had 
all  disappeared.  My  son  had  discovered  across  the 
creek  a  locality  which  was  rich  in  fossil  inverte- 
brates, consisting  chiefly  of  straight  and  coiled 
nautilus-like  shells;  and  shortly  after  the  downpour 
I  went  over  to  set  to  work  collecting  them,  as  Dr. 
Broili  had  told  me  that  the  Munich  Museum  was 
anxious  to  secure  such  a  collection.  I  had  not  been 
long  at  work  before  George  shouted  to  me  that  if  I 
did  not  want  to  swim  I  would  better  cross  the  creek 
again  at  once.  I  followed  his  advice  so  hastily  that 
I  left  my  tools  behind.  Instantly,  a  raging,  boiling 
flood  of  water  covered  the  rocks  in  the  bed  of  the 


In  the  Red  Beds  of  Texas        263 

creek',  over  which  I  had  just  crossed  dry-shod,  and 
rapidly  rose  to  a  height  of  eight  feet,  threatening  to 
submerge  my  camp. 

Looking  for  a  good  place  to  work  on  my  side  of 
the  creek,  the  west,  I  found  the  gulch  which  I  have 
referred  to  above.  There  was  a  level  floor,  formed 
by  the  first  stratum  of  the  gray  beds,  extending 
about  five  hundred  yards  to  a  ledge  of  red  sandstone, 
eight  feet  thick.  The  floor  was  covered  with 
debris  washed  from  the  red  beds.  To  my  astonish- 
ment, although  the  surface  was  dry,  a  flood  of  water 
was  rushing  out  from  under  the  upper  deposits  and 
tumbling  in  a  miniature  waterfall  over  the  gray 
ledge,  which  was  nearly  five  feet  thick,  into  the 
ravine  below. 

The  rock  I  found  to  be  composed  of  four  layers 
of  sandstone.  The  upper  layer,  eight  inches  thick, 
is  composed  of  fine-grained  sand,  which  seems  to 
have  been  ground  to  an  impalpable  powder  by  the 
beating  of  the  waves.  It  is  very  compact  and 
heavy,  and  upon  exposure,  breaks  into  rectangular 
blocks,  so  perfect  in  shape  that  they  can  be  used  for 
building  purposes  without  being  touched  by  hammer 
or  chisel.  The  second  layer  breaks  into  large  blocks 
of  many  tons'  weight.  It  is  coarser  grained  than 
No.  i,  and  is  about  twenty  inches  thick.  It  contains 
a  few  casts  of  invertebrate  fossils.  No.  3  is  twelve 
inches  thick,  and  is  of  the  same  general  character  as 


264          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

the  other  layers  It  is  literally  packed  with  casts  of 
straight  and  coiled  shells  related  to  our  living  nau- 
tilus. They  are  mingled  in  great  confusion.  I  be- 
lieve some  of  the  coiled  shells  are  a  foot  in  diameter. 
This  stratum  is  not  so  compact  as  the  others,  and 
seems  to  contain  more  lime.  No.  4  is  a  very  solid 
gray  sandstone,  eight  inches  thick,  its  upper  surface 
crossed  at  various  angles  by  elevated  ridges  of 
harder  material. 

From  these  observations,  I  am  led  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  pervious  nature  of  the  red  beds, 
which  in  the  valley  of  the  Wichita  are  about  three 
hundred  feet  thick,  allows  the  water  to  sink  rapidly 
down  through  them  until  it  reaches  the  impenetrable 
gray  sandstone ;  from  which  it  runs  off  at  whatever 
angle  the  rocks  may  be  tilted. 


CHAPTER  XI 
CONCLUSION 

MAY  begin  this  closing  chapter  by  men- 
tioning some  other  specimens  which  I 
have  discovered,  or  which  my  sons  have, 
for,  thank  God,  I  have  raised  up  a  race  of 
fossil  hunters.  My  second  son,  Charles  M.  Stern- 
berg,  has  in  his  person  recently  fulfilled  a  dream  of 
forty  years  of  my  own,  by  discovering  the  most  com- 
plete skeleton  known  of  Professor  Marsh's  great 
toothed-bird,  Hesperornis  re  galls,  the  Royal  Bird 
of  the  West.  Unfortunately  the  skull  is  missing, 
otherwise  the  nearly  complete  skeleton  is  present, 
and  strange  to  say  in  normal  position,  showing  that 
Dr.  F.  A.  Lucas  is  right  in  his  restoration  of  the 
Martin  specimen  as  mounted  in  the  National 
Museum,  i.  e.,  as  a  loon,  a  diver  instead  of  a  wader, 
as  had  been  supposed.  Our  specimen,  however, 
shows  a  much  longer  neck  than  he  had  imagined. 
Strange  indeed  was  this  long-necked  diver  with  its 
tarsus  at  right  angles  with  the  body  and  its  power- 
ful web- footed  feet.  The  body  was  narrow,  a  little 
over  four  inches  wide,  with  a  backbone  like  the 

265 


266  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

keel  of  a  boat.  The  head  was  ten  inches  long  and 
armed  with  sharp  teeth.  By  keeping  the  body  hori- 
zontal it  could  explore  a  column  of  water  six  feet 
high  and  wide,  for  any  unfortunate  fish  within  the 
zone  of  its  activity.  I  would  name  this  great  loon 
the  Snake-Bird  of  the  Niobrara  Group.  This  speci- 
men I  longed  to  find  for  so  many  years,  but  was  glad 
to  give  the  credit  to  my  son.  It  is  to  be  mounted  in 
the  American  Museum,  and  I  picture  it  as  it  left  my 
laboratories  (Fig.  41). 

A  word  also  about  that  great  flying  machine  of 
the  Cretaceous,  the  flying  lizard  Pteranodon.  The 
skeleton  and  a  very  fine  skull,  which  my  son  found 
on  Hackberry  Creek  in  1906,  is  now  mounted  in  the 
British  Museum,  where  my  warm  friend  Dr.  A. 
Smith  Woodward  assures  me  "  my  specimens  are 
greatly  admired." 

Especially  have  I  been  fortunate  in  the  Kansas 
Chalk  where  my  son,  George  Fryer,  has  charge  as  I 
write  these  lines  of  my  twentieth  expedition  to 
those  beds,  and  where  he  has  discovered,  and  safely 
collected  and  shipped  to  my  laboratory,  a  great 
plate  of  the  beautiful  stemless  Crinoid  Uintacnnus 
socialis.  I  sent  one  section  to  Professor  M.  Boule, 
of  the  National  Natural  History  Museum  of  France, 
at  Paris.  Hundreds  of  these  rare  animals  are 
represented  in  this  slab  (Fig.  42). 

Before  these  pages  go  to  press,  and  a  year  after  I 


FIG.  41. — SKELETON  OF  Hesperornis  regalis,  THE  GIANT  TOOTHED-BIRD  OF  THE 

KANSAS  CRETACEOUS. 
Discovered  by  Charles  M.  Sternberg.     In  American  Museum  of  Natural  History. 


Conclusion  267 

began  work  on  them,  I  am  pleased  to  be  able  to  tell 
my  readers  of  two  noble  specimens  of  the  Pleistocene 
Age  I  have  just  secured  from  the  plains  of  Kansas, 
that  great  treasure  house  of  the  animals  of  the  past. 
One  is  a  majestic  Bison,  whose  head  towering  above 
that  of  his  fellows  supported  a  pair  of  horn  cores 
measuring  six  feet  from  tip  to  tip.  Along  the  curve 
the  distance  is  eight  feet.  The  length  of  the  head  is 
two  feet,  the  distance  between  the  horns  sixteen 
inches,  and  from  the  center  of  the  orbits,  one  foot. 
These  splendid  horn  cores  were  uncovered  through 
a  fortunate  chance.  It  seems  that  the  Missouri 
Pacific  Railway,  wishing  to  shorten  the  creek  in  the 
vicinity  of  Hoxie,  Sheridan  County,  Kansas,  cut  a 
new  right-of-way  for  it  across  a  bend.  Their  exca- 
vation came  within  two  feet  of  the  bones  buried  be- 
low, thirty-five  feet  from  the  surface  of  the  earth;  a 
friendly  freshet  washed  them  out,  and  they  were 
discovered  by  Mr.  Frank  Lee  and  Harley  Hender- 
son, of  Hoxie,  Kansas,  June  15,  1902.  I  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  secure  them  in  June,  1908.  I  have 
filled  them  with  white  shellac,  and  they  are  now  in 
condition  to  be  preserved  always,  a  specimen  of  the 
grand  old  bison  of  the  Pleistocene  time.  Now  their 
burial  places  are  three  thousand  feet  nearer  the  stars 
than  the  day  they  were  buried  there,  as  then  the 
climate  was  semi-tropical  and  the  land  they  roamed 
over  near  sea  level.  The  largest  pair  of  horn  cores 


268          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

of  a  similar  bison  are  preserved  in  the  Cincinnati 
Natural  History  Museum.  I  copy  from  one  of 
their  records :  "  The  most  conspicuous  figure  on 
Plate  IX,  with  immense  horn  cores,  is  of  the  long 
extinct  broad-fronted  bison.  This  specimen,  by  far 
the  finest  of  its  kind  in  existence,  is  the  greatest 
prize  in  the  Cincinnati  Museum.  It  was  found  in 
1869  on  Brush  Creek,  Brown  County,  Ohio,  and 
through  the  efforts  of  Dr.  O.  D.  Norton  it  was  ac- 
quired by  the  Museum  in  1875."  It  gives  me  great 
pleasure  to  show  my  readers  a  photograph  of  the 
Kansas  form  that  measures  along  the  curve  of  the 
horn  cores  a  foot  and  a  half  more  than  the  famous 
Ohio  specimen.  (Fig.  43.) 

The  great  Columbian  Elephant,  whose  jaw  I  il- 
lustrate and  have  still  in  my  possession,  represents 
one  of  the  largest,  or  the  largest,  of  its  kind  ever  dis- 
covered. It  was  found  near  the  town  of  Ness  City, 
in  Ness  County,  Kansas.  This  giant  lived  at  the 
same  time  the  great  Bison  existed.  The  last  molars 
have  pushed  out  the  worn  premolars  and  the  other 
two  molars,  and  occupy  the  entire  jaw,  having  a 
grinding  surface  of  5  x  9  inches.  The  lower  parts 
of  the  teeth  flare  out  like  a  fan,  and  measure  twenty 
inches  along  the  top  of  the  roots.  The  greatest  cir- 
cumference of  the  jaws  is  2&/2  inches,  and  the 
length  32  inches.  Unfortunately,  the  articulations 
are  worn  away,  likely  by  rolling  in  some  river  bed. 


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Conclusion  269 

I   secured   this   noble   representative  of  American 
Elephants  in  June,  1908  (Fig.  44). 

How  rich  are  the  strata  that  compose  the  earth's 
crust  only  a  fossil  hunter  can  fully  realize.  Take, 
for  instance,  western  Kansas,  where  the  soil  beneath 
our  feet  is  one  vast  cemetery.  I  know  of  a  ravine 
in  Logan  County  which  cuts  through  four  great  for- 
mations. The  lower  levels,  of  reddish  and  blue 
chalk,  are  filled  with  the  remains  of  swimming  liz- 
ards, with  the  wonderful  Pteranodonts,  the  most 
perfect  flying  machines  ever  known,  with  the 
toothed  bird  Hesperornis,  the  royal  bird  of  the 
West,  and  the  fish-bird  Icthyornis,  with  fish-like  bi- 
concave vertebrae,  with  fishes  small  and  great  (one 
form  over  sixteen  feet  long),  and  huge  sea-tortoises. 
Above  are  the  black  shales  of  the  Fort  Pierre  Cre- 
taceous, thousands  of  feet  of  which  are  exposed  in 
the  bad  lands  of  the  upper  Missouri.  In  this  forma- 
tion the  dinosaurs  reign  supreme.  Still  higher  are 
the  mortar  beds  of  the  Loup  Fork  Tertiary,  where 
the  dominant  type  changes  from  reptiles  to  mam- 
mals. Here,  in  western  Kansas,  are  found  great 
numbers  of  the  short-limbed  rhinoceros,  the  large 
land-turtle,  Testudo  orthopygia,  several  inferior 
tusked  mastodons,  the  saber-toothed  tiger,  the  three- 
toed  horse,  and  a  deer  only  about  eighteen  inches 
high.  Higher  still,  where  the  grass  roots  shoot 
down  to  feed  on  the  bones,  are  the  Columbian  mam- 


270          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

moth,  the  one-toed  horse,  like  our  species  of  to-day, 
a  camel  like  our  South  American  llama,  and  a  bison 
far  larger  than  the  present  species. 

The  living  bison  has  become  almost  extinct  itself, 
through  the  agency  of  man.  And  in  the  layer  of 
soil  which  covers  all  these  formations,  an  old  arrow- 
head and  the  crumbling  bones  of  a  modern  buffalo 
give  an  object  lesson  in  the  manner  in  which  these 
relics  of  the  earlier  world  have  been  preserved.  So 
races  of  animals,  as  of  men,  reach  their  highest  state 
of  development,  retrograde,  and  give  place  to  other 
races,  which,  living  in  the  same  regions,  obey  the 
same  laws  of  progress. 

My  readers  will  be  pleased,  I  am  sure,  to  know 
that  just  before  these  pages  go  to  press  I  am  per- 
mitted to  tell  the  story  of  our  last  great  hunt  in  Con- 
verse County,  Wyoming,  during  July,  August,  and 
September,  1908,  for  the  largest  skull  of  any  known 
vertebrate,  the  great  three-horned  dinosaur,  Tricera- 
tops  (Fig.  45).  Only  thirteen  good  specimens  are 
known  to  American  museums,  7  of  which  are  in  Yale 
University  Museum,  and  were  collected,  I  believe,  by 
J.  B.  Hatcher.  From  his  field  notes  Mr.  Hatcher 
has  made  a  map  of  this  region  with  crosses  to  in- 
dicate the  localities  in  which  skulls  have  been  found, 
and  30  are  so  indicated,  but  I  soon  learned  that  he 
noted  broken  and  poor  material,  as  well  as  the  more 
perfect.  With  my  three  sons  I  entered  the  region 


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Conclusion  271 

with  enthusiasm  on  the  hunt  for  one  of  these  skulls 
for  the  British  Museum  of  Natural  History. 

I  was  not  employed  by  that  institution,  but  the 
agreement  was,  in  case  I  secured  a  good  specimen, 
it  was  to  go  to  them.  I  must  acknowledge  I  felt 
rather  dubious  when  Dr.  Osborn  of  the  American 
Museum  wrote  me  that  he  had  had  parties  in  these 
beds  four  years,  searching  without  success  for  a 
specimen.  For  weeks  and  weeks  we  four  examined 
every  bit  of  exposed  rock  in  vain.  The  rock  con- 
sisted of  clay  and  sandstone,  the  latter  both  massive 
and  cross-bedded.  Scattered  through  the  great  de- 
posits of  sandstone  were  peculiar-shaped  masses  of 
very  hard  flinty  rock,  with  the  same  physical  char- 
acteristics but  with  superior  hardness.  These  added 
strange  forms  to  the  land  sculptury.  Almost  every 
form  the  mind  can  imagine  is  found  here,  from 
colonies  of  giant  mushrooms,  to  human  faces  so 
startling  as  to  secure  instant  attention  from  the 
observer.  (Figs.  38  and  39.) 

A  general  view  of  the  country  from  an  elevated 
butte  shows  many  cone-like  mounds,  resembling 
table  mountains  or  even  haystacks  in  the  hazy  dis- 
tance !  As  the  rocks,  and  even  the  flint-like  material, 
readily  disintegrate,  the  creeks  that  run  east  into  the 
Cheyenne  River  soon  radiate  like  the  rays  of  a  fan 
and  deeply  scar  the  narrow  divides  into  rather  deep 
canyons  and  narrow  ravines.  Perhaps  a  thousand 


272          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

feet  of  these  fresh-water  beds,  are  laid  down  in  a 
basin  surrounded,  on  all  sides,  by  the  marine,  Fort 
Pierre,  and  Fox  Hills  Cretaceous. 

Buck  Creek  on  the  south,  Cheyenne  River  on 
north  and  east,  and  a  line  through  the  mouth  of 
Lightning  Creek  would  roughly  give  the  area  of  the 
Laramie  Beds  we  explored.  They  cover  about  a 
thousand  square  miles.  Here  in  a  country  given  up 
entirely  to  cattle  and  sheep  ranges  with  but  little  of 
the  country  fenced,  meeting  no  one  but  now  and 
then  a  lonely  sheep  herder,  my  tribe  of  fossil  hun- 
ters entered  with  bounding  hope  that  we  might  find 
some  of  these  famous  dinosaurs. 

Here  is  the  border  land  between  the  Age  of  Rep- 
tiles and  of  Mammals,  where  mammals  first  appear 
as  small  marsupials.  We  secured  several  teeth  of 
these  early  mammals.  Day  after  day  hoping 
against  hope  we  struggled  bravely  on.  Every  night 
the  boys  gave  answer  to  my  anxious  inquiry,  What 
have  you  found?  Nothing.  Often  we  ran  out  of 
palatable  food,  as  we  were  65  miles  from  our  base, 
and  did  not  always  realize  how  our  appetites  would 
be  sharpened  by  our  miles  of  tramping  over  the 
rough  hills  and  ravines.  One  day  in  August,  Levi 
and  I  started  in  our  one-horse  buggy  to  a  camp  we 
had  made  near  the  cedar  hills  on  Schneider  Creek. 
rAs  we  passed  a  small  exposure  which  I  had  not  gone 
over,  I  left  him  to  drive  and  went  over  the  beds  of 


Conclusion  273 

reddish  shale,  the  remnant  of  an  old  peat-bog.  I 
found  the  end  of  a  horn  core  of  Triceratops,  and 
further  excavation  showed  I  had  stumbled  upon  the 
burial  place  of  one  of  these  rare  dinosaurs.  How 
thankful  we  were  that  after  so  much  useless  labor 
we  had  at  last  secured  the  great  object  of  our  hunt. 
It  will  prove  a  beautiful  skull  when  prepared  and 
mounted  under  the  direction  of  Dr.  Smith  Wood- 
ward, Keeper  of  Geology  in  the  British  Museum, 
where  so  many  of  my  discoveries  have  gone. 

Unfortunately  the  skull  was  somewhat  broken  up, 
and  one  horn  core  is  missing.  But  one  side  of  the 
face  with  the  large  horn  core,  the  back  of  the  head, 
and  the  great  posterior  crest,  seems  entire,  as  well  as 
large  pieces  of  the  other  side  of  the  face,  and  a  fine 
specimen  will  be  made  of  it.  The  total  length  of 
the  skull  is  6  feet  6  inches.  The  horn  core  over  the 
eye  is  2  feet  4  inches  high ;  while  the  circumference 
in  the  middle  is  2  feet  8  inches,  and  it  is  15  inches  in 
diameter  at  the  base. 

This  was  a  fully  matured  animal.  As  the  bony 
ossicles  of  the  head  armature  are  co-ossified  with  the 
margin  and  remain  as  undulations  more  or  less 
sharply  defined,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  they  are 
ornaments.  They  might  assist  a  little  in  defense 
but  not  offense. 

In  the  mean  time  my  oldest  son,  George,  told  me 
of  a  region  he  had  explored  a  half-mile  from  our 


274  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

camp  near  the  head  of  a  ravine.  Here  we  had 
found  a  natural  cistern  full  of  rain-water,  protected 
from  the  sun  and  cattle  by  a  couple  of  great  concre- 
tion-like masses  of  rock  that  covered  it.  Over  the 
divide  where  I  had  found  the  great  skull,  be- 
tween Boggy  and  the  breaks  of  Schneider  near  its 
mouth  in  Cheyenne  River,  George  took  Levi  and 
myself.  The  evening  before,  I  took  the  skull  in  to 
Lusk  for  shipment.  George  pointed  out  a  locality 
in  which  he  had  found  a  bone-bed,  where  we  later 
secured  many  teeth  of  reptiles  and  fishes,  scales  of 
ganoid  fishes,  bones  of  small  dinosaurs  and  croco- 
diles and  the  beautifully  sculptured  shells  of  turtles, 
Trionx,  etc.  As  there  was  still  a  tract  of  a  few 
hundred  yards  to  be  explored  the  two  boys  started 
to  go  over  it,  while  I  went  to  the  bone-bed.  They 
soon  joined  me  with  the  information  that  they  had 
found  some  bones  sticking  out  of  a  high  escarpment 
of  sandstone.  George  had  found  part  of  the  speci- 
men in  one  place  and  Levi  another  part  soon  after- 
wards. I  requested  George  to  carefully  uncover 
the  floor  on  which  the  bones  lay. 

While  we  were  taking  in  our  skull,  George  and 
Levi  ran  nearly  out  of  provisions,  and  the  last  day 
of  our  absence  lived  on  boiled  potatoes.  But  in 
spite  of  this  they  had  removed  a  mass  of  sandstone 
12  feet  wide,  15  feet  deep,  and  10  feet  high. 

Shall  I  ever  experience  such  joy  as  when  I  stood 


Conclusion  275 

in  the  quarry  for  the  first  time,  and  beheld  lying 
in  state  the  most  complete  skeleton  of  an  extinct 
animal  I  have  ever  seen,  after  forty  years  of  ex- 
perience as  a  collector !  The  crowning  specimen  of 
my  life  work ! 

A  great  duck-billed  dinosaur,  a  relative  of  Tra- 
chodon  mirabilis,  lay  on  its  back  with  front  limbs 
stretched  out  as  if  imploring  aid,  while  the  hind 
limbs  in  a  convulsive  effort  were  drawn  up  and 
folded  against  the  walls  of  the  abdomen.  The  head 
lay  under  the  right  shoulder.  One  theory  might  be 
that  he  had  fallen  on  his  back  into  a  morass,  and 
either  broken  his  neck  or  had  been  unable  to  with- 
draw his  head  from  under  his  body,  and  had  choked 
to  death  or  drowned.  If  this  was  so  the  antiseptic 
character  of  the  peat-bog  had  preserved  the  flesh 
until,  through  decay,  the  contents  of  the  viscera  had 
been  replaced  with  sand.  It  lay  there  with  expanded 
ribs  as  in  life,  wrapped  in  the  impressions  of  the 
skin  whose  beautiful  patterns  of  octagonal  plates 
marked  the  fine  sandstone  above  the  bones.  George 
had  cut  away  the  rock,  leaving  enough  to  give  the 
impression  that  even  the  flesh  was  replaced  by  sand- 
stone, giving  an  exact  picture  of  him,  as  he  breathed 
his  last  some  five  million  of  years  ago. 

A  more  probable  explanation,  judging  from  the 
shape  of  the  skin  outline  which  covers  the  abdomen 
and  is  sunken  into  the  body  cavity  at  least  a  foot, 


276          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

is  that  the  great  creature  died  in  the  water.  The 
gases  forming  in  the  body  floated  the  carcass,  which 
was  then  carried  by  currents  to  the  final  burial  place. 
When  the  gases  escaped,  the  skin  collapsed  and  oc- 
cupied their  place;  the  carcass  sank  head  first  and 
feet  upward,  the  former  dragging  under  the  shoul- 
der as  the  body  came  to  rest  on  the  mud  of  the 
bottom. 

Quite  different  indeed  is  this  grand  example  of 
extinct  life  from  the  one  restored  and  of  which  an 
ideal  picture  is  given  in  this  book  (Fig.  46).  In  the 
first  place,  in  the  specimen  we  discovered  the  ribs 
are  expanded,  the  great  chest  cavity  measuring  18 
inches  deep,  24  inches  long,  and  30  inches  wide.  I 
have  no  doubt  but  that  with  lungs  expanded  to  their 
full  capacity,  he  often  swam  across  streams  of  water 
in  the  tropical  jungle  in  which  he  lived  and  died. 
Further,  the  front  limbs  are  not  mere  arms,  that 
never  touched  the  ground,  but  were  used  in  locomo- 
tion, as  there  are  toes  with  hoof-bones,  not  so  large 
as  those  of  the  hind  feet  but  with  the  same  pattern, 
and  a  divergent  thumb,  that  had  a  round  bone  for 
its  ungual.  Consequently  the  animal  could  use  the 
front  feet  as  clumsy  hands  to  hold  down  the  limb 
of  a  tree  from  which  he  was  cropping  the  tender 
foliage,  or  banners  of  moss.  There  were  three  pow- 
erful hoofs  on  each  hind  foot. 

I  do  not  question,  in  the  presence  of  this  in- 


Conclusion  277 

dividual,  which  is  complete  excepting  the  hind  feet, 
tail  and  left  tibia  and  fibula,  but  that  the  reptile  often 
stood  erect,  supporting  his  ponderous  weight  while 
feeding  on  the  leaves  of  the  forest.  But  when  it 
walked  it  used  its  front  limbs  as  well.  A  remark- 
able character  are  the  countless  rods  of  solid  bone 
that  lay  along  the  backbone  in  the  flesh,  and  appear 
like  ossified  tendons  similar  to  those  in  the  leg  of  a 
turkey.  Hundreds  of  ossified  rods  appeared,  row 
after  row,  shaped  like  Indian  beads,  as  thick  as  a 
lead  pencil  in  the  center  and  beveled  off  to  a  small 
round  point.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  these  were 
for  defense;  that  when  a  great  Tyrannosaurus  rex 
leaped  on  his  back,  his  powerful  claws  found  no 
lodgment  in  the  flesh  on  account  of  these  bony  rods 
that  could  not  be  penetrated.  Thus  our  dinosaur 
would  shake  off  his  enemy. 

How  wonderful  are  the  works  of  an  Almighty 
hand!  The  life  that  now  is,  how  small  a  fraction 
of  the  life  that  has  been !  Miles  of  strata,  mountain 
high,  are  but  the  stony  sepulchers  of  the  life  of  the 
past. 

How  rapidly  has  the  field  expanded  which  I 
entered  as  a  pioneer  some  forty  years  ago !  In  1867 
I  knew  only  five  paleontologists — Agassiz,  Lesque- 
reux,  Marsh,  Cope,  and  Leidy,  with  but  few  fol- 
lowers; while  to-day,  Harvard,  Princeton,  the 


278  Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter 

American,  the  Carnegie,  the  Field,  and  the  National 
Museums  have  all  built  up  great  collections  of  the 
animals  and  plants  of  the  past,  and  the  number  of 
publications  on  fossil  animals  has  reached  an  enor- 
mous total. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  attending  the  meeting  of  the 
American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science  that  met  in  the  American  Museum  in  New 
York  at  the  mid-winter  session  in  1906.  Professor 
Osborn  introduced  me  to  his  splendid  Head  Pre- 
parator,  Mr.  Hermann,  who  has  mounted  the  skele- 
tons of  the  great  Brontosaurust  Allosaurus,  and  so 
many  other  examples  of  extinct  animals.  Mr,  Her- 
mann was  requested  by  the  Professor  to  devote  all 
his  spare  time  to  showing  me  anything  the  exhibi- 
tion and  storerooms  contained,  prepared  or  unpre- 
pared, and  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  make  my  visit 
pleasant.  I  certainly  felt  at  home  in  that  paradise 
of  ancient  animals,  many  of  which  I  had  collected 
for  science  on  my  own  explorations.  The  magnif- 
icent halls  in  which  they  are  exhibited  are  a  wonder- 
ful tribute  paid  by  the  wealth  and  intelligence  of  the 
citizen  of  Greater  New  York  to  science.  How 
admirable  that  Mr.  Jesup  should  use  his  private 
fortune  as  the  means  to  take  from  the  obscur- 
ity of  the  private  dwelling  of  the  late  Professor 
Cope  his  great  collection,  to  which  I  was  a  con- 
tributor for  eight  years ;  and  he  has  placed  it  under 


Conclusion  279 

Professor  Henry  F.  Osborn,  who  with  the  assist- 
ance of  Drs.  J.  L.  Wortman,  W.  D.  Matthew,  and 
others,  has  brought  order  out  of  chaos  and  presented 
in  intelligible  shape  not  only  that  collection  but 
many  others  from  the  fossil  fields  of  the  West. 

It  is  a  glorious  thought  to  me  that  I  have  lived 
to  see  my  wildest  dreams  come  true,  that  I  have 
seen  stately  halls  rise  to  be  graced  with  many  of  the 
animals  of  the  past  that  lived  in  countless  thousands, 
and  that  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  securing  some  of 
the  treasures,  in  the  shape  of  complete  skeletons, 
which  now  adorn  those  halls. 

I  stood  on  Columbia  Heights  that  same  year  of 
1906,  and  my  heart  swelled  with  pride  when  I 
looked  down  on  that  teeming  metropolis  and  re- 
membered that  I  too  was  a  native  of  the  Empire 
State.  Then  I  thought  of  my  distant  prairie  state 
of  Kansas,  and  gloried  in  the  thought  that  the  best 
years  of  my  life  had  been  spent  in  her  ancient  ocean 
and  lake  beds,  those  old  cemeteries  of  creation. 

That  past  life,  at  least  a  very  small  fraction  of  it, 
I  have  sought  to  bring  before  my  readers  with  pen 
pictures.  We  have  men  among  us  who  can  put 
their  conceptions  of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  land 
and  sea  and  air  on  canvas,  and  among  them  are  Mr. 
Charles  R.  Knight,  of  the  American  Museum,  and 
Mr.  Sidney  Prentice,  of  the  Carnegie  Museum. 
Mr.  Prentice  I  knew  as  a  boy,  and  he  has  done  me 


280          Life  of  a  Fossil  Hunter  T 

the  honor  to  assure  me  that  my  words  of  counsel 
have  done  something  at  least  toward  assisting  him 
to  make  the  choice  of  following  the  work  not  only 
of  an  artist  in  a  paleontological  museum,  but  in 
portraying  with  pencil  and  brush  the  ideal  pictures 
of  the  early  denizens  of  earth  as  in  life.  His  suc- 
cess is  shown  in  his  restorations  of  Clidastes.  The 
results  of  Mr.  Knight's  restorations  of  many  of  the 
extinct  animals  brighten  my  pages,  thanks  to  my 
friend  Professor  Henry  F.  Osborn,  so  if  I  have 
failed  in  my  pen  pictures  to  take  my  readers  into 
the  misty  past,  these  brilliant  restorations  will  cer- 
tainly have  the  desired  effect. 

I  cannot  hope  in  this  short  space  to  have  given 
more  than  a  passing  glance  at  the  life  of  a  fossil 
hunter.  It  has  been  one  of  joy  to  me;  I  should  not 
like  to  have  missed  making  the  discoveries  I  have 
made,  and  I  would  willingly  undergo  the  same  hard- 
ships to  accomplish  the  same  results.  And  if  my 
story  does  anything  to  interest  people  in  fossils,  I 
shall  feel  that  I  have  not  written  in  vain. 

When  I  requested  Professor  William  K.  Gregory 
of  Columbia  University  to  be  the  final  reader  of  the 
manuscript  of  this  book,  "  The  Life  of  a  Fossil 
Hunter,"  shall  I  ever  forget  his  kind  words?  "I 
hope  you  will  not  feel  that  you  are  under  any  per- 
sonal obligations  whatever,  because  this  slight 
^service  is  simply  laid  upon  me  by  the  necessities  of 


Conclusion  281 

the  case,  i.  e.,  by  the  fact  that  your  whole  life  and 
work  have  placed  all  paleontologists  under  lasting 
obligations  to  you."  Surely  "  my  cup  runneth 
over;  I  have  a  goodly  heritage."  Greater  than  their 
obligations  to  me,  are  mine  to  the  men  of  science 
who  have  described,  published,  but,  above  all,  have 
prepared  and  exhibited  the  noble  monuments  of 
creative  genius  which  I  have  been  so  fortunate 
as  to  discover  and  make  known  to  the  civilized 
world.  My  own  body  will  crumble  in  dust,  my  soul 
return  to  God  who  gave  it,  but  the  works  of  His 
hands,  those  animals  of  other  days,  will  give  joy  and 
pleasure  "  to  generations  yet  unborn." 


FINIS 


INDEX 


Adocus,  77 

Amphibian,   Long-horned,   253 
Anderson,   A.   E.,  58 
Anseres,  Fossil,  160 
Aphelops  megalodus,  123 
Archalurus  debilis,  189 
Aspidophyllum  trilobatum,  19 

Bad  Lands,  Expedition  to,  61- 

98 

Bailey,  Dr.,  260 
Baird,  Letter  from  Spencer  F., 

20 

Basin,  John  Day,  173,  190 
Batrachians,  Fossil,   161 
Beds,  Laramie,  272 
Benton,  Fort,  79,  97,  9§ 
Betulites  westii,  30 
Bison,  Giant  Fossil,  267,  268 
Blackbird,  Fossil,   161 
Bourne,  W.  O.,  58 
Broili,    Dr.    F.,    112,    234,   253, 

254,  255,  258 

Bromfield,  Corporal,  226,  227 
Brontosaurus,  78 
Brouse,  A.  W.,  101,  121,  141 
Button,  Mr.  Lee,  157,  168,  169 

Camel,  Fossil,  187,  188,  242 
Carboniferous,   Upper,    135 
Cardicephalus  sternbergi,  255 
Chalk,   Expedition  to  Kansas, 
32-60 

Further  Work  in  Kansas, 

99-119 
Clidastes,  53,  135,  280 

tortor,  44 

velox,  51,  53 

ivesti,  135 
College,  Vassar,  53 


Condon,  Prof.,  160,  161 
Coots,  Fossil,  161 
Cope,  Prof.  E.  D.,  Character- 
istics of,  45,  69,  74,  75, 
83,    84,    89,    90,    91,    92, 
93,  95,  239,  242,  243 

Expedition  to  Bad  Lands 
with,    61-89 

Horned  Dinosaurs  Discov- 
ered by,  87 

Letter  from,  33,  142 

News  of  Death  of,  241 

Speech  Given  by,  45 

Memory   and   Imagination 
of,  75,  76 

Wit  of,  98,  99 
Cormorants,  Fossil,  160 
Coulee,  Grand,  175,  204 
County,  Converse,  270 

Gove,  34,  118 

Logan,  35,  38,  50,  54,  57,  60 
Coyote,  211 
Creek,   Beaver,   138 

Bushy,  234 

Butte,  50 

Chapman,   101 

Coffee,  245,  246,  252 

Cottonwood,  273 

Deer,  126 

Dog,  68,  77,  79,  81,  88 

Gray,  250,  253 

Hackberry  34,  35,  38,  107, 
135,  266 

Hay,   60 

Indian,  241 

Pine,    170 

Pony,  261 

Prairie  Dog,  126,  127 

Sappa,  120,   121,   140 
Cretaceous,  Life  of  the,  54 
Crinoid,  Stemless,  266 


283 


284 


Index 


Davis,  Leander,  196,  198,  202, 

203 

Day,  Bill,  173,   178 
Dayville,    189 
Desert,      Expedition     to     the 

Oregon,    144-169 
Diceratherium  nanum,  189 
Dimetredon,  217,   256 
Dinosaur,  77,  273 

Duck-billed,  275 

Horned,  87,  88 

Three-horned,  270 
Diplocaulus,  227,  257 

copei,  254,  255 

magnicornis,  240,  253,  255 
Dissorophua,  242 
Dolichorhynchus   osborni,   ill 
Duncan,   Mr.,   154,    156,    158 

Eastman,  Dr.,  114 
Elephant,   Columbian,   268 
Elcphas  primigenius,  160 
Elotherium    humerosum,     186, 

187 
Enhydrocyon       stenocephalus, 

189 

Eryops,  217,   227,  256 
megacephalus,  251 

Ficus,   23 

Flamingo,   Fossil,   161 
Flora,  Tertiary,  172 
Fossils,  Formation  of,  258-260 
Method  of  Excavating,  41, 
42,  88,   109,  no,  130 

Galyean,  Frank,  230,  231,  232 
Gar-pike,  253 
Gorge,    Picture,    173 
Grebes,  Fossil,  160 
Gregory,  Prof.  William  K.,  280 
Group,  Fort  Pierre,  70,  135 

Loup  Fork,  120 

Niobrara,  50,   122 
Grouse,   Fossil,    161 
Gulls,  Fossil,  160 

Hamman,  George,  207,  209 
Haploscapha  grandis,  108 


Hatcher,  Prof.  J.  B.,  70,   123, 

133,  270 

Hayden,  Dr.,  78,  205 
Henry,  Major,  229 
Hermann,  Adam,  58,  278 
Heron,  Fossil,  161 
Hesperornis  regalis,  265,  266 
Hill,  Mr.  Russell,  101,  141 
Hill,  Smoky,  109,  113 
Holland,  Dr.  W.  J.,  115 
Hollick,  Dr.  A.,  21,  22,  26 
Horse,  Three-toed,  126,  188 
Howard,  General,  191,  196,  197 
Hoxie,  267 
Huff,  Joe,   170,  177 

Ichthyornis,  269 
Inoceramus,  135 
Isaac,  J.  C,  47,  48,  61,  65,  74, 
79,  80,  81,  83,  86,  93,  94, 
98 

Island,  Cow,  79,  87,  89,  91,  98 
Long,  132,  134 

Klamath,  Fort,  142,  146 
Knight,  Charles  R.,  279,  280 
Knowlton,  Dr.  F.  H.,  24 

Labidosaurus,  256,  257 

hamatus,  253 
Lacoe,  R.  D.,  24 
Lake,   Fossil,   158 

Silver,  148,  149,  154 
Leaves,    Formation   of    Fossil, 
28,  29 

Preparation  of  Fossil,  25, 

Lesquereux,  Dr.,  19,  21,  22,  23, 

24 
Lizard,  Fin-backed,  227,  234 

Flying,  266 

Loosely,  George,  148,   152,  158 
Loup  Fork  Beds,  Discovery  of 

the,  120-143 
Lucas,  Dr.   F.   A.,  265 
Lynx,  Canadian,  211 
Lysorophua  tricarinatus,  258 


Index 


Macbride,    Letter    from    Prof. 
T.  K.,  27 

Mammoth,  Columbian,  260 
Teeth  of  Columbian,   134 
Skull  of  Hairy,  160 

Marsh,  Prof.  O.  C,  32,  77,  87, 
129,  133,  173 

Marsupials,  272 

Martin,    H.   T.,    112 

Mascall,  Mr.,  178,  179,  190,  191, 

193 
Mastodon,  123,   125,  127 

Jaws  of,   124,   125 
Matthew,   W.   D.,  279 
Merrette,  Major  J.  R,  222 
Merriam,  J.  C.,  165 
Miocene,   Upper,  131 
Monoclonius,  87 

crassus,  87 

sphenocerus,  87 
Mosasaur,  27,  50,  204 
Mountains,  Bear  Paw,  97 

Judith  River,  85 
Mudge,  Prof.  B.  F.,  32 
Museum,     American,     57,     78, 
187,    188,    189,   234,   243, 
250,  266,  278,  279 

British,   51,    125,   267,   271, 

273 

Cambridge,    123 

Carnegie,   53,   54,   59,   "5, 
H7,  133 

French,  266 

Harvard,    137 

Munich,  112,  234,  244,  262 

National,  134,  265 

Princeton,   133 

Roemer,  51 

Senckenberg,    118 

Yale,    133 

Myledaphus  bipartitus,  78 
Mylodon,  161 

Naosaurus,  227,  234,  235,  236 
Ness  City,  268 
Newberry,  Dr.  J.  S.,  21 

Orcodon,  177,   189 

Osborn,    Prof.   H.    F.,    51,   57, 


112,    115,   243,   257,   271, 

278,  279,  280 

Osborn  and  Lambe,  77,  78 
Otoccelus,  242 
Overton,  Mr.,   128,  129 
Owl,  Fossil,  Great  Horned,  161 

Paratylopus   sternbergi,    188 
Pariotichus,  257 
Peccary,  Fossil,   189 
Permian,    Expeditions    in    the 

_Texas,    230-243 
Phcenicopterus  copei,  161 
Plate  car  pus,  46,   51,  52,  53 

coryphceus,  50,  204 
Pogonodon  platycopis,  202 
Portheus  molossus,  54,  57,  58 

Collecting  a  Specimen  of, 
55,  56,  57 

Description  of,  59,  60 
Prentice,  Sidney,  53,  279 
Protophyllum   sternbergi,   18 
Protostega  gigas,  114,  115,  116, 

117 

Pteranodon,  266 
Pythonomorpha,  44 

Quarry,    The    Sternberg,    125, 

126,   131 

Theory  of  Presence  of 
Fossil  Animals  in,  131, 
132 

Rattlesnake,  210 
Raven,  Fossil,  161 
Rhinoceros,   123,   133,   134 

Bones  of,  127,  128,  138 

Skull  of,   189 

River,  Expedition  to  the  John 
Day,   170-204 

Loup  Fork,  120 

Soloman,  34,  121 

Sprague,   149,   151 
Rocks,  Monument,  36,  46,  116 
Russ,  Will,   129 

Salamander,    Great,    217,    227, 

251 
Fossil,  240 


286 


Index 


Sandstone,  Concretions  of,   15 
Sassafras  dissectum,   19 
Sassafras,  Fossil  Leaves  of,  18 
Seymour,  249 
Shark,  Cretaceous,  113 
Shufeldt,  Dr.,  160,  161,  162 
Sill,  Fort,  220,  226 
Sloth,  Fossil,  161 
Snow,  Prof,  104 
Springer,  Mr.  Frank,  117,  118 
Sternberg,     Charles    H.,     Ad- 
venture on  a  Cliff,  182- 
184 
Adventure  with  a  Norther, 

214 

Buffalo  Hunting,  6-9 
Dangerous  Ride,  96 
Discovery    of    the    Texas 

Permian,    230-233 
Experience  with  a  Cyclone, 

121 

Finding  a  Fossil  Lake,  158 
Narrow       Escape       from 

Death,  72,  73 
Setting  a  Dislocation,  140, 

141 
Wild    Ride    through    Bad 

Lands,  89-92 
Writing  "  Pliocene  Man," 

159 

Sternberg,  Charles  M.,  263 
Sternberg,  George,  109-111,  118, 
171,    246,    252,   255,    256, 
262,   273,   274 
Sternberg,  Levi,  272,  274 
Swan,  Fossil,  160 

Teleoccras  fossiger,  134 
Testudo   orthopygia,   122,   138, 

269 
Texas,  Expedition  to  Permian 

of,  205-229 
In  the  Red  Beds  of,  244- 

264 
Tiger,  Saber-toothed,  137,  202 


Tortoise,   Sea,  114 
Trachodon,  77 

mirabilis,  275-277 
Trie erat of>s,  270,  273 
Trilophodon  campester,  123, 124 
Trionyx,  77 
Turtle,  Land,  121 

Sea,  77 
Tylosaurus,  51 

Ram-nosed,  49 
Tyrannosaurus  rex,  277 

Uintacrinus,  118,  119 

socialis,   117,  266 
University,  California,  165 

Harvard,  205 

Iowa  State,  50 

Kansas  State,  51,  in,  135, 
112 

Oregon  State,  160 

Yale,  77 

Valley,  Sican,  151,  153 
Varanosaurus  acutirostris,  254 
Village,  Deserted  Indian,  163- 

165 

Von  Zittel,  Dr.  Carl,  113,  244 
Letter  from,  247,  248 

Walla  Walla,  Fort,  170 
Water,  Alkali,  41 

Desert,  211-213 
West,  Judge  E.  P.,  30,   135 
Whelan,    Pat,   214 
Whitaker,   Governor,    160,    162 
Wichita,  Big,  209,  212,  227,  230 
Williston,   Dr.   S.   W.,  49,   50, 

53,   in,   112,   113,   144 
Woodward,  Dr.  A.  Smith,  266, 

273 
Wortman,  Dr.  J.  L.,  134,  171, 

188,  279 
Wright,   Mr.,   140,   218 

Zeuglodon,  57 


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HENRY     HOLT     AND      COMPANY 

34  WEST  33d  STREET  NEW  YORK 


THE  AMERICAN  NATURE  SERIES 

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Junior  University.     $6.00  net;  carriage  extra. 
AMERICAN  INSECTS,  by  VERNON  L.  KELLOGG,  Professor  in  the 

Leland  Stanford  Junior  University.     $5.00  net;  carriage  extra. 

Arranged  for  are: 

SEEDLESS  PLANTS,  by  GEORGE  T.  MOORE,  Head  of  Department 
of  Botany,  Marine  Biological  Laboratory,  assisted  by  other  spe- 
cialists. 

WILD  MAMMALS  OF  NORTH  AMERICA,  by  C.  HART  Msa- 
RIAM,  Chief  of  the  United  States  Biological  Survey. 

BIRDS  OF  THE  WORLD.  A  popular  account  by  FRANK  H. 
KNOWLTON,  M.S.,  Ph.D.,  Member  American  Ornithologists 
Union,  President  Biological  Society  of  Washington,  etc.,  etc. 

1 


AMERICAN    NATURE    SERIES      (Continued) 

with  Chapter  on  Anatomy  of  Birds  by  FREDERIC  A.  LUCAS, 
Chief  Curator  Brooklyn  Museum  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  and  edited 
by  ROBERT  RIDGWAY,  Curator  of  Birds,  U.  S.  National  Museum. 

REPTILES  AND  BATRACHIANS,  by  LEONHARD  STEJKEGER,  Cura- 
tor of  Reptiles,  U.  S.  National  Museum. 

Section  B.  A  Shorter  Natural  History,  mainly  by  the  Authors 
of  Section  A,  preserving  its  popular  character,  its  proportional  treat- 
ment, and  its  authority  so  far  as  that  can  be  preserved  without  its 
fullness.  Size  not  yet  determined. 

II.    CLASSIFICATION  OF  NATURE 

1.  Library  Series,  very  full  descriptions.     8vo.     7£xlO|  in. 

Already  publisht: 
NORTH  AMERICAN  TREES,  by  N.  L.  BRITTOK,  Director  of  the 

New  York  Botanical  Garden.     $7.00  net;  carriage  extra. 
FERNS,  by  CAMPBELL   E.  WATERS,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University 

8vo,  pp.  xi+362.     $3.00  net;  by  mail,  $3.30. 

2.  Pocket  Series,  Identification  Books—"  How  to  Know,"  brief  and 

in  portable  shape. 

III.    FUNCTIONS   OF  NATURE 

These  books  will  treat  of  the  relation  of  facts  to  causes  and 
effects— of  heredity  and  the  relations  of  organism  to  environment. 
8vo.  6f  x8|  in. 

A  Iready  publisht : 
THE  BIRD :  ITS   FORM   AND  FUNCTION,  by  C.    W.   BEEBE, 

Curator  of  Birds  in  the  New  York  Zoological  Park.  8vo,  496  pp. 

$3.50  net;  by  mail,  $3.80. 

Arranged  for: 
THE  INSECT:    ITS     FORM   AND  FUNCTION,  by  VERNON  L. 

KELLOGG,  Professor  in  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University. 

THE  FISH:  ITS  FORM  AND  FUNCTION,  by  H.  M.  SMITH,  of 
the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Fisheries. 


AMERICAN    NATURE    SERIES     (Continued) 

IV.    WORKING  WITH  NATURE 

How  to  propagate,  develop,  care  for  and  depict  the  plants  and 
animals.  The  volumes  in  this  group  cover  such  a  range  of  subjects 
that  it  is  impracticable  to  make  them  of  uniform  size. 

Already  publisht: 
NATURE  AND  HEALTH,  by  EDWARD  CURTIS,  Professor  Emeritus 

in  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons.     12mo.     $1.25  net; 

by  mail,  $1.37. 
THE  FRESHWATER  AQUARIUM  AND   ITS  INHABITANTS. 

A  Guide  for  the  Amateur   Aquarist,   by   OTTO   EGGELING  and 

FREDERICK  EHRENBERG.  Large  12mo.  $2.00  net;  by  mail,  $2.19. 
THE  LIFE  OF  A  FOSSIL  HUNTER,  by  CHARLES  H.  STERNBERG. 

Arranged  for; 
PHOTOGRAPHING  NATURE,  by  E.  R.  SANBORN,  Photographer 

of  the  New  York  Zoological  Park. 
THE  SHELLFISH  INDUSTRIES,  by  JAMES  L.  KELLOGG,  Professor 

in  Williams  College. 
CHEMISTRY  OF  DAILY  LIFE,  by  HENRY  P.  TALBOT,  Professor 

of  Chemistry  in  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology. 
DOMESTIC  ANIMALS,  by  WILLIAM  H.  BREWER,  Professor  Emeri- 

tus in  Yale  University. 
THE  CARE  OF  TREES  IN   LAWN,  STREET  AND  PARK,  by 

B.    E.    FERNOW,  Professor  of  Forestry,  University  of  Toronto. 

V.    DIVERSIONS    FROM  NATURE 

This  division  will  include  a  wide  range  of  writings  not  rigidly 
systematic  or  formal,  but  written  only  by  authorities  of  standing. 
Large  12mo.  5£x8£  in. 

Already  publisht: 

INSECT  STORIES,  by  VERNON  L.  KELLOGG.  $1.50net;  by  mail,  $1.63. 
FISH  STORIES,  by  CHARLES  F.  HOLDER  and  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN. 

Arranged  for; 

HORSE  TALK,  by  WILLIAM  H.  BREWER. 
BIRD  NOTES,  by  C.  W.  BEEBE. 

VI.    THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE 

A  Series  of  volumes  by  President  JORDAN,  of  Stanford  Univer- 
sity, and  Professors  BROOKS  of  Johns  Hopkins,  LULL  of  Yale,  THOM- 
SON of  Aberdeen,  PRZIBRAM  of  Austria,  ZUR  STRASSEN  of  Germany, 
and  others.  Edited  by  Professor  KELLOGG  of  Leland  Stanford.  12mo. 
in. 


HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY,    NEW  YORK 
JANUARY,  '09. 

S 


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Sternberg,  C.H, 

The  life  of  a  fossil 
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PHYSICAL 
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S7 

A3 


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77779 


Sternberg,  C.H. 

The  life  of  a  fossil 


Call  Number: 

QE707 

S7 

A3 


